'i-  • 


.^>;;r^-  ■: 


<<'.'     s 


:,-'>' 


i^'- 


Section. .;./y]39 


THE    CONDITIONS 


OUR    LORD'S    LIFE    ON    EARTH 


THE  BISHOP  PADDOCK  LECTURES,  i8y6 

THE    CONDITIONS 


OF 


Our  Lords  Life  on  Earti 


Being  Five  Lectures  delivered  on  the  Bishop  Paddock 
Foundation,  in  the  General  Seminary  at  New  York,  1896 

TO    WHICH    IS    PREFIXED    I'ART   OF   A 

FIRST   PROFESSORIAL  LECTURE  AT   CAMBRIDGE 


BY 

ARTHUR   JAMES    MASON,    D.D. 

LADY  MARGARET   PROFESSOR  OF    DIVINITY  AND  FELLOW  OF   JESUS  COLLEGE 
CAMBRIDGE  \    CANON    OF   ST.    SAVIOUR's,   CANTERBURY 


NEW   YORK 
LONGMANS,     GREEN,     &    CO. 

LONDON   AND    BOMBAY 
1896 

All  rights  teserved 


TO    THE    VERY    REVEREND 
FREDERICK    WILLIAM    FARRAR.    D.D., 

DEAN    OF    CANTERBURY. 
WHOSE    NAME    IS    EVERYWHERE    ASSOCIATED    WITH 

THE   LIFE   OF    CHRIST, 

THIS    LITTLE    VOLUME    IS    DEDICATED 
BY    ONE    WHO    HAS    HAD    FOR    A   YEAR    THE    PRIVILEGE   OF 

WORKING    UNDER    HIM, 
AND    HAS    RECEIVED    GREAT    KINDNESSES    AT    HIS    HANDS. 


THE    BISHOP    PADDOCK    LFXTURES. 


In  the  summer  of  the  year  1880,  George  A. 
Jarvis  of  l^rooklyn,  New  York,  moved  by  his 
sense  of  the  great  good  which  might  thereby 
accrue  to  the  cause  of  Christ,  and  to  the  Church 
of  which  lie  was  an  ever-grateful  member,  gave 
to  the  General  Theological  Seminary  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  certain  securities, 
exceeding  in  value  eleven  thousand  dollars,  for 
the  foundation  and  maintenance  of  a  Lectureship 
in  said  seminary. 

Out  of-  love  to  a  former  pastor  and  enduring 
friend,  the  Right  Reverend  Benjamin  Henry 
Paddock,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Massachusetts,  he 
named  the  foundation  "  The  Bishop  Paddock 
Lectureship." 

The  deed  of  trust  declares  that  "  tJie  subjects 
of  the  lectures  shall  be  such  as  appertain  to  the 


viii  THE   BISHOP  PADDOCK  LECTURES. 

defence  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  revealed 
in  the  Holy  Bible,  and  illustrated  in  the  Book 
of  Conniion  Prayer,  against  the  varying  errors 
of  the  day,  whether  materialistic,  rationalistic,  or 
professedly  religious,  and  also  to  its  defence  and 
confirmation  in  respect  of  such  central  truths  as 
the  Triiiity,  the  Atonement,  Justification,  and  the 
Inspiration  of  the  Word  of  God ;  and  of  such 
central  facts  as  the  ChnrcJis  Divine  Order  and 
Sacraments,  her  historical  Reformation,  and  her 
rights  and  powers  as  a  pure  and  national  Church. 
^;/^  other  subjects  may  be  chosen  if  unanimously 
approved  by  the  Board  of  Appointment  as  being 
both  timely  and  also  within  the  true  intent  of 
this  Lectureship." 

Under  the  appointment  of  the  Board  created 
by  the  trust,  the  Rev.  Arthur  James  Mason,  D.D., 
Canon  of  Canterbury,  and  Lady  Margaret  Pro- 
fessor of  Divinity  in  the  University  of  Cambridge, 
delivered  the  Lectures  for  the  year  1896,  con- 
tained in  this  volume. 


PREFACE 

The  last  three  of  these  Lectures  were  in  sub- 
stance delivered  to  the  clergy  of  Worcester  and 
the  neighbourhood,  in  the  chapter-house  of  that 
Cathedral,  in  1892  and  1895,  and  to  the  summer 
gathering  of  clergy  at  Cambridge  in  1894. 

When  the  Trustees  of  the  Paddock  Lecture 
Fund  did  me  the  honour  to  invite  me  to  lecture 
on  that  foundation,  I  thought  I  could  do  no 
better  than  take  the  same  subject,  feeling  that 
a  reverent  treatment  of  it  would  tend  more  than 
anything  else  to  draw  out  the  personal  devotion 
of  the  students  of  the  General  Seminary  towards 
our  Blessed  Saviour,  whose  ministers  they  were 
about  to  become,  and  that  a  full  examination 
of  the  Scriptural  data  might  tend  to  modify 
impressions  which  recent  criticism  upon  our 
Lord's  use  of  the  Old  Testament  was  tending 
to   create.      I  wish,   however,   to   make   it   plain 

b 


PREFACE. 


that  the  authorities  of  the  Seminary  were  in  no 
way  responsible  for  my  manner  of  dealing  with 
the  subject.  Amidst  the  utmost  kindness  and 
courtesy,  which  I  shall  remember  as  long  as  I 
live,  it  became  apparent  to  me,  before  the  Lec- 
tures were  at  an  end,  that  what  I  had  been  led 
to  say  did  not  meet  with  unmixed  approval.  I 
cannot  but  hope  that  some  of  the  misgivings 
which  the  Lectures  aroused  may  be  removed 
by  the  perusal  of  them  in  print.  It  is  one  thing 
to  listen  to  spoken  words,  perhaps  under  con- 
ditions not  very  favourable  to  accurate  hearing, 
and  another  thing  to  look  at  them  quietly  in  the 
study.  One  American  newspaper  which  has 
been  forwarded  to  me,  speaks  as  if  there  were 
some  uncertainty  as  to  whether  I  believed  in 
the  Godhead  of  Christ  or  not.  Such  an  insinua- 
tion would  have  been  totally  impossible  on  the 
part  of  any  one  who  had  heard  me.  The  God- 
head of  Christ  is  not  only  explicitly  and  in  set 
terms  asserted  in  many  passages  of  the  New 
Testament ;  it  forms  the  substratum  of  the 
entire  Bible,  and  of  all  history.  Without  the 
Godhead  of  Christ   the  Bible  would  be  a  self- 


PREFACE. 


contradictory  chaos,  and  the  history  of  man  and 
of  the  world  would  be  meaningless. 

A  more  acute  and  serious  criticism  was  directed 
against  my  third  lecture,  so  I  am  informed,  by 
a  respected  English  priest,  who  has  given  him- 
self to  the  service  of  a  parish  in  the  American 
Church.  He  considered  that  my  treatment  of 
our  Lord's  miracles  (of  which  he  was  only 
able  to  judge  by  report)  came  under  the  ninth 
Anathema  of  Cyril,  which,  along  with  the  other 
eleven  Anathemas,  was  adopted  by  the  Ecumeni- 
cal Council  of  Ephesus,  and  reaffirmed  by  later 
Councils.     That  Anathema  runs  thus  : — 

"  If  any  man  saith  that  the  one  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  was  glorified  by  the  Spirit,  and  used  the 
power  that  came  by  Him  as  a  power  that 
was  not  His  own,  and  received  from  Him  the 
ability  to  work  miracles  against  unclean  spirits 
and  to  perform  Divine  signs  among  men,  instead 
of  saying  that  the  Spirit  through  whom  He 
wrought  the  signs  was  His  own  Spirit,  let  him 
be  Anathema."  ^ 

1  I  translate  the  text  as  given  in  P.  E.  Pusey's  Cyril  vol.  vi. 
pp.  36   and  254  :    YA  ns   (/)7]crl    tuv  eVa  Kvpiou  'irjaovv  Xpiarhi' 


PREFACE. 


It  must  be  remembered,  however,  what  was 
the  special  heresy  against  which  the  Anathemas 
of  Cyril  were  directed.  The  word  "one,"  near 
the  beginning  of  the  ninth,  strikes  the  note. 
They  are  directed  against  Nestorianism,  not 
against  Arianism,  or  any  form  of  thought  which 
might  seem  to  lower  the  eternal  Person  of  the 
Word  as  such.  The  Nestorian  heresy  made  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  two  persons,  not  one  ;  and  it 
would  seem  (we  know  little  of  Nestorius's  teach- 
ing except  through  Cyril's  polemic  against  it) 
that  Nestorius  had  used  the  text,  "He  shall 
glorify  Me  "  (St.  John  xvi.  14),  as  an  indication 
that  there  was  in  Christ  a  human  person  who 
could  speak  of  being  glorified  by  the  Spirit,  dis- 
tinct from  that  Divine  Person  of  the  Word  who. 


5eSo|acr0ai  Trapa  tov  Trvev/xaros,  as  aWorpia  ^vvd/iiei  rrj  ^l^  ahrov 
Xpci/J-^vou,  Kol  Trap*  avrov  Xafiovra.  rh  iuepyelv  SvvacrdaL  Kara 
Truevfj-OLTcov  aKaQdprwv,  Koi  rh  irX'qpovv  els  avOpwirovs  ras  dcoarifiias, 
Kot  ovxi  S)?  fxciWov  'iBlov  avTOv  TO  TTv^v/xd  (p7](n,  5i'  ov  Koi  iuripyriKe 
rds  0€oa-r]iJ.ias,  audOe/jLu  earco.  Aubert's  text  reads  :  TtJ"  idia  ahrov 
for  T-f)  5i'  avTov  ;  and  so  does  Theodoret,  according  to  the  Paris 
text  of  1642.  This  would  yield  the  sense,  "and  used  the  power 
which  was,  in  fact,  His  own,  as  though  it  were  another's."  The 
Anathemas  may  be  found  also  in  Labbe's  Councils  vol.  iii. 
p.  410,  or  in  a  handy  form  in  Denzinger's  Enchiridion  Sym- 
boloi'jun  et  Definitiomim  p.  23. 


PREFACE. 


it  was  assumed,  could  not  be  so  glorified.  It 
seems  to  have  been  further  assumed^  that  the 
form  in  which  the  Spirit  thus  glorified  the  human 
person  associated  with  the  Word,  was  the  working 
of  miracles  by  Jesus  Himself,  including  the 
Ascension,  or  by  His  disciples  afterwards. 

The  "explanation"  of  this  Anathema,  which 
was  given  by  Cyril  himself  to  the  Council  of 
Ephesus,  was  as  follows :  *'  The  only  begotten 
Word  of  God,  when  He  was  made  Man,  re- 
mained God  also,  being  all  things  that  the 
Father  is,  except  only  the  Fatherhood  ;  and  He 
wrought  the  Divine  signs,  having  as  His  own 
the  Holy  Spirit,  who  is  from  Him  and  essentially 
is  in  Him  (ro  t?  avTOV  Kai  ovcriwdwg  IjUTracpvtcoc 
avTc[))  ;  SO  that,  though  He  was  become  Man. 
yet,  because  He  remained  God  also,  He  per- 
formed the  miracles  as  by  His  own  power  when 
He  performed  them  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit. 
Those  who  say  that  He  was  glorified  by  the 
operation  of  the  Spirit  after  the  fashion  of  an 
ordinary  man,  or  of  one  of  the  saints,  which  He 
employed,  not  as  His  own,  but  as  that  of  another 

*  See  Pusey's  Cyril  \\.  p.  32. 


PREFACE. 


who  was  Divine  (wc  ICsXorp'ui  koI  O^OTrptTru),  and 
that  He  received  from  the  Spirit  as  a  gift  of 
grace  His  Ascension  into  heaven,  will  justly  lie 
under  the  force  of  the  Anathema."  ^ 

It  was  an  unwarranted  assumption  when 
(as  it  appears)  on  either  side  it  was  supposed 
that  "to  glorify,"  in  the  sense  of  St.  John's 
Gospel,  must  imply  an  increase  of  glory,  which 
could  not  properly  be  predicated  of  a  Divine 
person.  "  To  glorify  Christ "  can  be  as  truly 
said  as  "to  glorify  God,"  which  is  so  frequent 
an  expression  in  the  Bible.  Neither  was  it  by 
the  miracles  only,  nor  even  chiefly,  whether 
before  or  after  the  Ascension,  that  the  Spirit  is 
said  to  glorify  Christ ;  it  was  by  displaying  on 
a  much  larger  scale,  as  well  as  in  a  much  more 
inward  and  penetrating  fashion,  the  majesty  of 
the  co-equal  Son.  Cyril's  exegesis  in  this  matter 
was  not  much  better,  perhaps,  than  that  of 
Nestorius.  But  with  regard  to  his  main  point, 
he  was  unquestionably  right.  Whatever  further 
difficulty  of  interpretation  might  be  involved, 
Jesus    Christ   was   one,    not   two ;    He  was  the 

*  Pusey's  Cfn7  vi.  p.  254. 


PREFACE.  XV 

Divine  Word,  made  man,  yet  remaining  very 
God  ;  and  when  He  said  that  the  Spirit  should 
glorify  Him,  it  was  He  Himself,  the  Incarnate 
Word,  who  said  it,  and  not  a  human  person 
caught  up  into  a  peculiar  relation  with  Him — 
nor,  for  that  matter,  a  human  nature,  as  Theo- 
doret  would  have  made  out ;  ^  and  whatever  that 
glorifying  might  consist  of,  the  Spirit  who  was 
to  perform  it  was  essentially  His  own  Spirit, 
proceeding  from  Himself  as  well  as  from  the 
Father,  and  dwelling  in  Him  as  well  as  in 
the  Father.  The  Anathema  was  justly  in  force 
against  those  who  conceived  otherwise. 

The  view  which  is  suggested  in  my  lecture, 
as  resulting  from  the  juxtaposition  of  all  the 
Scripture  passages  bearing  on  the  subject,  is  one 
which  does  not  appear  to  have  entered  into  the 
mind  of  either  Nestorius  or  Cyril,  and  which, 
therefore,  is  altogether  outside  the  scope  of 
Cyril's  censure.  It  is  that  the  Eternal  Son 
Himself,  from  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  proceeds, 
vouchsafed  to  take  the  position  of  a  recipient 
of   the    Holy   Ghost,  and,    although    He    might 

*  Theodoret  Rcpr.  XII.  Capitiini  Cyrilli. 


PREFACE. 


\ 


at  every  moment  have  worked  His  wonderful 
works  by  His  own  intrinsic  Divine  power,  chose 
to  work  them  rather  by  what  may  be  called 
the  power  of  another, — though  the  power  of  that 
other  was  throughout,  in  Cyril's  sense,  His  own. 
There  is  no  derogation  from  the  perfection  of 
Christ's  Godhead  if,  according  to  what  appears 
to  be  the  natural  meaning  of  the  New  Testament 
words,  we  suppose  our  Lord  to  have  voluntarily 
assumed,  and  consistently  maintained  upon  earth, 
a  position  which  was  not  that  to  which  His 
Divine  nature  entitled  Him,  and  which  He 
might  at  any  instant  have  abandoned,  had  He 
so  willed. 

Cyril's  Anathema,  then,  is  not  directed  against 
a  view  in  the  smallest  degree  resembling  that 
which  is  advanced  in  these  lectures.  But  it 
may  be  acknowledged,  all  the  same,  that  the 
animus  of  Cyril's  theology  in  general  is  opposed 
to  the  line  here  taken.  It  is  well  known  that 
St.  Cyril,  though  it  is  unjust  to  charge  him 
with  Eutychianism  or  Monophysitism,  yet  lays 
himself  open  to  the  charge  of  minimizing  the 
significance  of  our  Lord's  Humanity.     Had  he 


PREFACE. 


been  more  sensitive  to  the  consecrated  lanGfuaec 
of  Scripture  with  regard  to  our  Lord's  Humanity, 
he  would  have  been  a  more  successful  opponent 
of  Nestorianism.^ 

The  fact  is,  that  ancient  theologians.  Catholic 
and  heretical  alike, — and  the  same  thing  holds 
true  of  many  modern  ones, — did  not  altogether 
form  their  systems  upon  a  scientific  and  methodi- 
cal examination  of  the  words  of  Holy  Scripture. 
It  was  not  at  all  that  they  thought  lightly  of 
the  authority  of  Holy  Scripture,  or  consciousl)- 
set  some  other  source  of  doctrine  over  against 
it  ;  their  arguments  are  almost  wholly  of  an 
exegetical  and  Scriptural  kind.  But  their  minds 
were  often  preoccupied  by  ideas  (sometimes  not 
of  purely  Christian  origin)  with  regard  to  what 
the  Divine  nature  must  needs  be,  which  occa- 
sionally led  them  into  ways  of  interpretation 
which  were  not  the  simplest  and  most  natural. 

The  providence  of  God  has  guarded  the  Church 
from   making  or  accepting  any  pronouncement 

'  The  attitude  of  Cyril  is  well  described  in  Dorner's  Doctrine 
of  the  Person  of  Christ  (Engl.  Tr.)  Div.  11.  vol.  i.  p.  65,  foil. ; 
and  there  is  a  good  catena  of  passages  from  him  in  Bruce's 
Humiliation  of  Christ  p.  366,  foil.;  comp.  p.  50,  foil. 


PREFACE. 


Upon  the  relation  of  the  Two  Natures  of  Christ 
which  would  be  at  all  in  conflict  with  Holy 
Scripture.  However  strongly  the  tide  may  at 
times  have  run  in  the  direction  opposed  to  a 
full  belief  in  our  Lord's  Humanity,  the  way  is 
left  open  for  this  side  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Incarnation  to  be  developed  by  men  who  hold 
firmly  the  Catholic  teaching  concerning  His 
essential  and  absolute  Godhead.  In  such  a 
development,  Holy  Scripture  must  be,  not 
merely  the  supreme  arbiter,  but  the  ground, 
and  the  fountain,  and  the  material,  and  the  all 
in  all.  We  need,  in  many  things,  not  only  to 
take  salient  texts  and  interpret  them  by  them- 
selves, but  to  endeavour  to  work  all  through 
Scripture  and  collect  everything  that  bears  upon 
the  point  under  investigation,  and  dispassionately 
to  see  what  conclusion  may  issue  from  such 
exhaustive  comparisons.  The  following  Lectures 
are  an  attempt,  however  ill-executed  it  may  be, 
to  contribute  to  such  a  New  Testament  Theology. 
With  reference  to  our  Saviour's  miracles  in  parti- 
cular, I  could  wish  that  the  very  plain  words  of  St. 
Peter,  in  Acts  x.  38,  might  be  taken  as  a  standard. 


PREFACE. 


and  other  passages  of  Scripture  ranged  either 
beside  it,  or  on  the  opposite  side,  if  there  are 
any  which  put  forward  a  different  aspect.  I 
do  not  know  of  any  to  set  on  the  opposite  side  ; 
and  if  there  should  ever  be  found  to  be  a 
discrepancy  between  the  language  of  St.  Cyril 
and  that  of  St.  Peter  (or  St.  Luke),  I  suppose 
we  should  all,  without  hesitation,  adopt  the 
latter. 

I  have  somewhat  purposely  abstained  from 
reading  modern  works  upon  the  KivcoaKj  of  the 
Son  of  God,  not  wishing  my  study  of  the  New 
Testament  teaching  upon  the  subject  to  be 
more  indebted  than  was  necessary  to  secondary 
sources.  I  have  read  the  historical  part  of 
Dr.  Bruce's  Humiliation  of  Christ ;  but  I  have 
not  read  Mr.  Gore's  Bainpton  Lectures  or  Dis- 
sertations on  Subjects  connected  luith  the  Incarna- 
tion, nor  Mr.  Swayne's  on  the  Hiunan  Knoivledge 
of  ojir  Lord. 

Since  my  return  from  America,  the  Bishop  of 
Edinburgh  has  very  kindly  pointed  out  to  me, 
through  a  friend,  a  most  valuable  Charge  by 
the   late  Bishop  (O'Brien)  of  Ossory,  in  which 


PREFACE. 


much  the  same  kind  of  Hne  is  taken  as  in  these 
Lectures.  The  Charge  was  a  reply  to  the  crude 
and  ahnost  Socinian  theories  which  had  then 
been  recently  put  forth  by  Bishop  Colenso.  It 
would  have  been  well  if  all  the  replies  to  Colenso 
had  been  marked  by  the  same  dignity,  and  the 
same  reasonableness,  and  the  same  readiness  to 
see  what  the  Scriptures  have  really  to  say  upon 
the  points  under  consideration,  as  that  part  of 
Bishop  O'Brien's  Charge  with  which  we  are  at 
present  concerned.  From  it  I  would  quote  the 
following  words : — 

"  Some  think  .  .  .  that  we  cannot  adopt  any 
interpretation  of  the  Lord's  w^ords  which  would 
represent  Him  as  having  undergone  anything 
beyond  an  outward  or  relative  change  in  taking 
our  nature.  From  the  impossibility  of  conceiv- 
ing any  change  in  the  Infinite,  they  seem  to 
have  inferred,  if  they  did  not  confound  the  two 
things,  that  any  such  change  is  impossible. 
But,  however  safely  we  may  hold  that  it  is 
impossible  that  any  such  change  can  take  place 
through  any  other  agency,  it  would  seem  very 
rash  and  presumptuous  to  deny  the  possibility 


PREFACE. 


of  its  being  effected  by  the  will  of  the  Infinite 
Being  Himself.  I  should  say  this,  supposing 
that  we  had  no  way  of  arriving  at  any  conclu- 
sion on  the  question  but  the  high  priuri  road. 
But  we  have  a  much  safer,  though  a  humbler 
way.  .  .  .  Where  the  Infinite  is  concerned,  we 
can  rely  but  little  upon  any  collection  of  our 
own  reason,  unless  it  be  confirmed  by  Revela- 
tion. Here,  however,  there  is  no  want  of  such 
confirmation,  nor  can  we,  I  think,  read  the  Holy 
Scriptures  fairly  without  finding  it."  ^ 

I  must  repeat  again,  what  I  have  said  more 
than  once  in  the  Lectures  themselves,  that 
it  has  not  been  my  intention  to  put  forward 
a  complete  theory  of  the  position  assumed  by 
our  Lord  upon  earth,  but  only  to  bring  to- 
gether the  material  out  of  which  any  Scriptural 
theory  of  it  must  be  formed.  There  is  probably 
much  material  that  I  have  overlooked,  and 
there  are,  no  doubt,  other  ways  both  of  inter- 
preting and  of  arranging  the   material   which  I 


^  A  Charge  delivered  to  the  Clergy  of  the  United  Dioceses  of 
Ossory^  Ferns,  and  Leighlin,  at  his  Ordinary  Visitation  in 
October,   1S63,  by  J.   T.   O'Brien,  D.D.  (Macmillan),  p.  104. 


PREFACE. 


have  collected  ;  but  I  trust  that  nothing  which 
I  have  said  will,  on  inspection,  be  found  in- 
compatible with  fidelity  to  that  doctrine  of 
the  Person  of  Christ  which  was  once  for  all 
declared  for  us  by  the  labours  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  four  great  Councils. 

I  have  ventured  to  prefix  to  the  Paddock 
Lectures  part  of  my  Introductory  Lecture  as 
Lady  Margaret  Professor  at  Cambridge,  de- 
livered in  January  last,  as  urging  somewhat 
more  fully  what  I  believe  to  be  one  of  the  chief 
requirements  of  the  time,  and  indeed  of  all 
times, — the  continued  re-investigation  of  the 
New  Testament  for  the  purposes  of  Dogmatic 
Theology. 


Canterbury, 

July,  1896. 


CONTENTS 


1>AGE 

Part  of  Introductory  Lecture  at  Cambridge      .        i 

LECTURE   I. 

The  Historical  Method  of  Studying  our  Lord's 

Life  upon  Earth 26 


LECTURE  II. 

The    Development  of   our    Lord's    Moral    Cha- 
racter as  Man 51 


LECTURE   III. 
Our  Lord's  Power  upon  Earth 84 

LECTURE   IV. 

Our  Lord's  Knowledge  upon  Earth — Appearances 

OF  Limitation 114 

LECTURE  V. 

Our  Lord's  Knowledge  upon   Earth — Its  Tran- 
scendence   155 


PART   OF   INTRODUCTORY    LECTURE 
AT   CAMBRIDGE. 


It  has  been  the  fashion  in  some  quarters  to 
assert,  and  to  assert  sometimes  with  a  good  deal 
of  asperity,  that  Cambridge  has  done  little  for 
Dogmatic  Theology.  The  complaint  cannot, 
of  course,  be  lodged  against  the  Cambridge 
of  former  days — I  will  not  say  of  the  days  of 
Overall  and  Pearson,  nor  even  of  the  days  of 
Waterland.  The  charge  could  not  justly  be 
made  in  the  days  of  Mill,  whose  Five  Sennons 
on  the  Temptation  of  Christ,  not  to  mention 
other  works  of  his,  are,  I  venture  to  think,  as 
fine  a  piece  of  doctrinal  exposition  as  could 
well  be  named.  Ikit  coming  to  the  days 
which    I,    at    any    rate,  know    best,    is    it    really 

Ji 


INTJWDUCTOKY  LECTURE. 


the  case  that  Cambridge  has  been  behindhand 
in  definite  teaching  of  the  contents  of  the 
Christian  faith  ?  I  will  not  speak  of  what 
has  been  done  by  means  of  the  history  of 
doctrine,  though  it  is  impossible  to  read 
treatises  like  Dr.  Hort's  on  the  history  of  the 
words  MONOrENHC  eEOC,  or  (if  I  may 
name  one  who  is  now  here)  Dr.  Swete's  on  the 
history  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Procession  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  without  gaining  the  clearest 
guidance  on  high  points  of  theology.  In  direct 
statement,  very  great  help  to  the  students  of 
Dogmatics  has  been  given  in  recent  years  at 
Cambridge.  It  would  not  have  been  possible 
for  any  Schoolman  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  lay 
out  a  more  comprehensive,  or  at  the  same  time 
a  more  subtle  and  delicate,  scheme  of  Christian 
Dogmatics  than  that  which  was  laid  out  by 
Dr.  Westcott,  in  courses  of  lectures  which  I 
attended  as  a  Bachelor  of  Arts,  and  which 
were,  I  believe,  repeated  several  times  afterwards. 
And  I  cannot  think  where  a  man  might  hope- 
fully  turn,  when  wishing  for  an  exact  presenta- 
tion of  the  orthodox  teaching  with  regard  to  the 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 


Person  of  Christ,  if  he  fails  to  find  it  in  siicli 
notes  as  Dr.  Lightfoot's  upon  the  Wpmt^tukuv 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  or  Dr.  West- 
cott's  upon  the  cardinal  pa.ssages  of  St.  John 
and  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

Dogmatic    theology    has,    perhaps,    npt    been 
obtruded  upon  students  here  ;  and  I  have  little 
doubt   that    most   of  us   would   be   unfeignedly 
sorry  if  it  had  been.     P'ew  sober-minded  people 
have   not  at  some   time   or  other  been  plagued 
and   wounded   by  the  peremptory  young    man, 
primed  with  other  men's  formulae,  or  with  his 
own  version  of  them,  who  has  little  experience 
of  the  labour  which  has  evolved  them,  and  no 
reserve  in   the   enuntiation   of  them.     Theology 
is   not   the   only   subject  in   which    such   rough 
dogmatism  is  possible.     Happily  that  is  not  the 
type   which   has   generally   been  developed  by 
the  Cambridge  Schools.     Respect  for  the  healthy 
growth     of    young     men's     minds    demands    a 
different    treatment.      We    have    no   wish   here 
to     substitute     authority     for    conviction.      We 
have   not  been   accustomed   to  purvey  for  men 
t^pinions    ready    made    in    any    department    of 


4  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

knowledge,  least  of  all  in  that  which  is  of  the 
highest  importance.  That  was  not,  as  a  Cam- 
bridge pen  has  shown,  the  mode  of  education 
adopted  by  the  Pastor  Pastonun  ;  and,  indeed, 
it  would  not  be  education  at  all.  Full,  accurate, 
Catholic  doctrinal  teaching  has,  no  one  can 
deny  it,  been  diligently  and  continuously  given 
at  Cambridge  ;  but  it  has  been  given  chiefly  in 
the  forms  that  are  most  like  life,  in  the  history 
of  Christian  thought,  and  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

For  the  English  Churchman  there  can  be  no 
doubt  where  to  look  for  the  doctrine  which  he 
is  to  teach  and  to  receive.  It  is  not  an  under- 
valuing of  Ecclesiastical  Tradition  to  say  that 
the  one  perennial  fountain  of  Christian  doctrine 
is  in  the  Bible.  Tradition,  in  the  case  of  a  great 
historical  and  still  living  corporation,  is,  of 
course,  of  first-rate  importance.  To  an  open- 
eyed  observer,  a  few  weeks  of  practical  inter- 
course with  the  men  who  hold  a  religion  conveys 
more  notion  of  what  that  religion  is  than  a 
year's  study  of  its  books.  Yet  there  are  many 
reasons  why  tradition  cannot  be  regarded  by  a 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  5 


frec-minded    Christian    as    a   co-ordinate  source 
of  doctrine  along  with  Scripture. 

In  the  first  place,  it  will,  I  think,  be  almost 
invariably  found  that  where  the  Fathers,  as  they 
frequently  do,  insist  upon  the  importance  of 
traditions  as  distinct  from  Scriptures,  the  tra- 
ditions upon  which  they  are  insisting  are  tra- 
ditions relating  to  practice,  and  only  indirectl}- 
to  doctrine.  To  disregard  Church  tradition 
was  to  them  the  mark  of  a  heretic  ;  but  the 
traditions  which  they  claim  to  have  received 
from  Apostolic  days,  apart  from  the  written 
Word,  were  usages  and  observances,  ceremonies 
and  rites.  Thus,  in  a  famous  passage,  TertuUian 
argues,  "We  make  offerings  for  the  dead,  and 
on  the  anniversary  of  the  mart>'rs'  birthda>'s  ; 
we  count  it  wrong  to  fast  or  to  kneel  for  pra)'er 
upon  the  Lord's  da}'.  We  enjoy  the  same  free- 
dom from  Easter  Day  to  Pentecost.  We  are 
much  distressed  if  any  portion  of  wine  or  bread, 
though  it  be  but  our  own  wine  or  bread,  fall  to 
the  ground.  At  every  movement  ...  we  rub 
the  sign  of  the  cross  upon  our  brows.  Ask  as 
you  ma\',  >'0U  will  find  no  law  of  the  Scriptures 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 


which  prescribes  these  and  similar  compliances. 
You  will  be  informed  that  tradition  prescribes, 
custom  ratifies,  and  faith  observes  them."  ^  Or 
again,  in  another  well-known  passage,  Basil  says, 
"  Some  of  the  things  agreed  upon  and  taught  in 
the  Church  are  gathered  from  the  written  instruc- 
tion ;  others  we  have  received  as  a  sacred  secret 
by  tradition  from  the  Apostles.  Both  these 
classes  are  of  equal  religious  importance.  No 
one  will  deny  it — at  any  rate,  no  one  who  has 
the  slightest  acquaintance  with  ecclesiastical  in- 
stitutions." But  the  instances  which  he  goes  on 
to  give  are  such  as  these :  "  Who  ever  taught  in 
writing  that  those  who  have  hoped  in  the  Name 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  {i.e.  catechumens)  should 
be  marked  with  the  sign  of  the  cross  t  What 
writing  taught  us  to  turn  to  the  east  in  praying  } 
.  .  .  We  bless  the  baptismal  water,  the  anoint- 
ing oil,  the  candidate  for  Baptism  himself, — on 
what  written  authority  }  Is  it  not  from  the  silent 
and  secret  tradition  } "  '^  He  says  much  more  to 
the  same  point. 

I  do  not  know  of  one  article  of  belief  which 
1  Tert.  dc  Corona  §§  3,  4.       -  Bas.  de  Spiritu  Sancto  §§  27. 


INTRODUCTOR V  LF.CTURE. 


is  asserted  by  the  Fathers  to  be  derived  from 
tradition    outside    of    the    canon    of    Scripture, 
Franzehn,    the   chief   modern    exponent   of  the 
Roman    theory   of  tradition,    only   attempts   to 
name  two — that  infants  are  to  be  baptized,  and 
that  the  Bible  is  an  inspired  whole.     But  there 
is   no    doctrine   of    Infant    Baptism    as    distinct 
from   Baptism   in   f^eneral,  however   it   may  suit 
Jesuit  and  Baptist  to  affirm  that  there  is  ;  and 
the  doctrine  of  Baptism  is  quite  sufficiently  set 
forth  in  Scripture  for  all  purposes.     Nor  would 
it  be  easy  to  say  what  Catholic  doctrine  concern- 
ing the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  has  come  down 
to  us  by  tradition    without  being  witnessed  to 
in  the  Bible  itself.     The  inspiration  of  the  New 
Testament    is   neither   more    nor  less  than   the 
inspiration  of  the  Apostles  and  their  associates  ; 
and  although,  no  doubt,  the  faithful  recognised 
the    Divine   authority   of  the   men   before  they 
recognised  the  same  in  their  books,  yet  for  all 
dogmatic  purposes  our  ideas  of  that  inspiration 
are   now  derived    from    the   phenomena   of  the 
books  themselves. 

Not  only  can  no  Catholic  doctrine  be  shown 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 


to  have  come  down  to  us  by  tradition,  which  is 
not  also  to  be  found  in  Holy  Scripture  ;  it  is 
quite  impossible  now  to  extricate  the  doctrinal 
tradition  of  the  Church  from  the  influence  of 
Scripture.  No  doubt  tradition  is  historically 
older  than  Scripture,  and  the  Apostles  and  other 
primitive  teachers  had  been  steadily  teaching 
their  doctrines  by  word  of  mouth  long  before 
they  wrote  them  down.  But  when  once  the 
doctrine  was  written  down,  men  turned  to  the 
written  words,  especially  when  the  Apostles  were 
not  present  in  person.  As,  in  the  particular  case 
of  the  history  of  Christ's  life  on  earth,  facts  and 
sayings  which  were  not  contained  in  the  recog- 
nised Gospels  soon  ceased  to  pass  from  mouth 
to  mouth,  so  with  regard  to  Christian  doctrine 
in  general,  the  New  Testament  Scriptures  soon 
came  to  take  possession  of  the  whole  field  of 
instruction.  They  were  worked  up  into  the 
living  tradition  (which,  of  course,  was  entirely 
in  harmony  with  them),  until  any  elements  of 
doctrinal  teaching  which  had  begun  to  be  propa- 
gated independently  of  Scripture  came  to  be 
merged    in    the   new   stream    of   a    tradition   of 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 


which  the  Scripture  was,  historically  speakin^^. 
the  source.  So  much  was  this  the  case,  that  the 
New  Testament  Scripture  itself  bears  witness, 
in  some  places,  to  a  doctrinal  tradition  which, 
because  it  was  not  explicitly  contained  in  the 
written  Word,  has  become  extinct.  I  mention 
as  an  instance  the  detailed  teaching  which  St. 
Paul  gave  orally  w^ith  regard  to  the  Man  of  Sin, 
and  to  the  power  which  restrained  his  manifes- 
tation.^ There  }-ou  have  a  genuine  Apostolic 
doctrine,  alive  and  at  work,  at  Thessalonica  and 
doubtless  elsewhere  too,  which  has  long  ago 
disappeared  from  the  current  teaching  of  the 
Church,  and  has  disappeared  because  of  the 
very  fact  that  it  was  so  well  understood  at 
the  time  as  not  to  need  more  than  an  allusive 
reference  from  the  Apostle's  pen,  which  refer- 
ence remains  now  as  a  crux  and  an  enigma. 
You  cannot  say  now  of  any  the  most  simple 
piece  of  true  Catholic  teaching,  that  it  has  not 
come  to  us  out  of  the  Bible. 

It  was,  in  the  main,  to  such  a  tradition  as  this, 
into  which  Scripture  had  been  worked  until  the 
^  2  Thess.  ii.  6. 


lO  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 


two  were  indistinguishable,  that  the  Fathers 
appealed  when  they  turned  to  tradition  as 
against  the  heretical  novelties  which  sought 
admission  into  the  Church.  When  Irenaeus,  for 
instance,  persuaded  men  to  listen  to  the  voice 
of  the  Church,  and  not  to  sects  who  were  armed 
with  detached  passages  of  Scripture,  because  in 
the  Church  was  preserved  the  original  doctrine 
of  Christianity,  he  included  a  reference  to  the 
written  documents,  as  well  as  to  the  oral 
preaching  which  explained  them.  Even  Vincent 
of  Lerins,  who  appears  to  speak  half-con- 
temptuously  about  the  oracular  ambiguity  of 
Scripture  as  a  guide  in  doctrine,  yet  shows 
plainly  that  the  orthodox  teaching  for  which  he 
contends  is  really  taken  from  Scripture  when  at 
last  he  formulates  his  charge  against  the  unhappy 
Origen,  whose  praises  he  has  been  heaping  up 
so  rhetorically.  "This  great  and  wonderful 
Origen,  presumptuously  abusing  the  grace  of  God, 
indulging  his  own  fancy  and  trusting  his  own 
judgment,  despising  the  ancient  simplicity  of 
the  Christian  religion,  and  pretending  to  know 
more    than    all    others    put    together,    scorning 


IN  TROD  UCTOR  Y  LEC  TUKE. 


Church  traditions  and  the  instructions  of  the 
men  of  old,  interpreted  "  (this  is  the  great  crime) 
"certain  passages  of  the  Scriptures  in  a  novel 
manner."  ^  The  true  tradition  of  the  Church,  so 
Vincent  implies,  centred  in  a  safe  and  venerable 
mode  of  interpreting  the  Bible. 

We  cannot,  therefore,  treat  the  tradition  of 
the  Church,  when  contrasted  with  Scripture,  as  a 
co-ordinate  source  of  Christian  doctrine,  at  what- 
ever point  in  its  history  we  might  endeavour  to 
fix  that  tradition.  It  is  not  from  the  age  of 
the  Reformers  and  the  Tridentine  theologians  ; 
it  is  not  from  the  age  of  the  Schoolmen,  with  all 
their  wide  outlook,  and  with  all  their  masterh^ 
precision  ;  it  is  not  even  from  the  age  of  the 
Fathers,  of  Athanasius  and  Augustine, — that  we 
arc  chiefly  to  take  our  doctrine. 

The  current  teaching  of  the  Church,  in  any 
age,  and  in  any  branch  of  the  Church,  needs 
always  to  be  brought  to  the  test  of  Scripture. 
If  this  test  is  not  vigorously  and  heedfully 
applied,  the  Church  is  apt  to  become  like  the 
traveller    upon    a    boundless     plain    without    a 

^  Vine.  Covinwn.  §  wii.  (al.  45). 


12  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

landmark,  sure  that  he  is  moving  in  a  straight 
hne  steadily  onwards,  who  finds  at  nightfall 
that  he  has  been  marching  all  day  in  a  curve 
which  has  taken  him  far  from  the  place  which 
he  thought  to  reach.  The  Fathers,  who  called 
upon  men  to  turn  from  scriptural  disquisitions 
to  the  living  testimony  of  the  Church,  had  not 
our  length  of  experience.  A  test  which  was 
useful  enough  in  their  time  is  not  so  certain 
to  act  rightly  now.  In  any  Church,  at  any  given 
period,  there  are  elements  of  Catholic  teaching 
which  are  left  much  out  of  sight.  The  age  has 
favourite  topics  ;  others  are  not  such  favourites. 
They  are,  perhaps,  not  designedly  set  aside,  but 
they  find  little  active  exposition.  If  it  were 
not  for  the  Scriptures,  they  would  gradually 
be  forgotten  or  discarded.  Now,  it  is  not  enough 
for  a  healthy  Church  that  the  Scriptures  should 
be  kept  somewhere  in  the  background,  as  a 
standard  that  may  be  referred  to  in  case  of  need. 
Unless  they  are  actually  and  conscientiously 
applied,  the  current  teaching  wanders  further 
and  further  away  from  primitive  and  Catholic 
Christianity,  and  becomes  more  and  more  one- 


INI  ROD  UCTOR  Y  L  ECTURE. 


sided  and  abnormal.  And  if  tlic  actual  teachinj^ 
of  the  day  is  consciously  and  on  principle  set 
up  as  of  equal  value  and  oblii^ation  with  the 
written  Word,  then  the  error  is  made  irreme- 
diable and  hopeless.  The  Bible  must  be  the 
informing  power  in  the  living  teaching  of  the 
Church,  if  that  living  teaching  is  to  be  trust- 
worth}'. 

It  must,  of  course,  never  be  forgotten  that  the 
Bible  is  a  Church  book,  written  by  Churchmen 
for  Churchmen,  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
same  Spirit  who  is  still  leading  the  Church,  so 
far  as  it  is  willing  to  be  led,  into  all  truth  and  in 
all  truth.  There  are  passages  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment which,  if  isolated  from  the  rest,  and  read 
by  one  who  did  not  know  the  great  principles 
of  the  Apostolic  doctrine,  might  easily  be  thought 
to  mean  something  far  from  what  is  intended. 
Clever  and  ingenious  persons,  approaching  the 
Bible  from  outside,  so  to  speak,  as  if  it  were 
a  newly  discovered  book,  about  which  there  is 
nothing  known,  and  selecting  portions  from  it 
after  an  arbitrary  fashion,  can  make  systems  out 
of   it    that    are    entircK'   unlike    that   which   has 


14  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

been  received  in  the  Church.  This  was  the  way 
in  which,  with  regard  to  Church  polity,  Calvin 
eind  the  Presbyterians  went  to  work  in  the  six- 
teenth century.  A  sound,  historical  method  of 
study  will  always  pay  the  utmost  deference  to 
what  is  found  to  have  been  the  general  opinion 
of  Christians  of  past  ages  with  regard  to  their 
faith,  and  with  regard  to  those  books  in  which 
their  faith  is  taught ;  and  will  only  with  reluc- 
tance and  diffidence,  if  ever,  depart  from  an 
account  which  has  been  generally  received.  It 
is  to  be  presumed  that  the  society  out  of  whose 
bosom  the  New  Testament  sprang,  and  which 
has  all  along  cherished  it  as  expressing  perfectly 
her  own  views  of  God  and  man,  will  be  the 
best  judge  of  the  construction  to  be  placed 
upon  its  utterances. 

But  this  reasonable  axiom  by  no  means 
excludes  the  necessity  of  fresh  investigations 
into  the  meaning  of  Scripture.  In  the  first 
place,  there  are  large  tracts  of  the  New 
Testament  which  have  never  received  any 
authoritative  interpretation,  and  which  abun- 
dantly repay  study  ;    and,  in    the  second  place* 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  1 5 


even  in  some  instances  where  it  iriciy  be  said 
that  there  is  somethini^  Hke  an  authoritative 
interpretation,  tlie  authority  is  niainly  concerned 
to  assert  a  general  principle  of  belief  which  must 
not  be  contravened,  rather  than  to  assert  that 
the  belief  is  expressed  in  the  text  in  question. 
It  may  be  readily  conceded  that  the  Church  is, 
in  a  general  sense,  the  interpreter  of  Scripture, 
without  holding  that  a  long-current  interpreta- 
tion of  a  particular  passage  is  critically  correct. 
A  position  like  that  of  many  of  the  so-called 
Jansenists  is  not  an  illogical  one,  when  they 
were  willing  to  condemn  the  propositions  laid 
before  them,  but  refused  to  acknowledge  that 
those  propositions  were  contained  in  the  writings 
of  Jansen  or  of  Quesnel.  The  Church  is  the 
judge  of  doctrine ;  it  might  not  be  so  safe 
for  her  always  to  claim  the  right  to  be  the 
judge  of  fact. 

Whether,  however,  the  Church  has  this  right 
in  the  abstract,  or  not,  it  is  certainly  her  wisdom 
to  welcome  the  freest  inquiry  on  the  part  of 
her  children — and,  indeed,  of  others  also — into 
the    meaning    of    those    Scriptures    which    she 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE, 


recognises  as  containing  the  great  legacy  of  her 
first  and  most  authoritative  teachers.  There  is 
something — may  I  say  it  without  offence  ? — 
that  looks  half  faithless  in  the  way  in  which 
TertuUian  and  Vincent,  but  still  more  the  modern 
writers  who  quote  them  with  approval,  decline 
the  conduct  of  controversy  with  heretics  over 
Scripture,  as  if  the  Scripture  might  be  made  to 
tell  for  heresy  as  easily  as  against  it.  It  looks 
as  if  they  thought  that  Scripture  was  not  only 
difficult  and  obscure,  but  also  really  dubious. 
If  "  Novatian  explains  it  in  one  wa}-,  Sabellius 
another,  Donatus  a  third,  and  Arius  a  fourth,"  ^ 
that  is  no  reason  why  the  inquiry  should  be 
surrendered,  and  the  contest  fought  out  upon 
other  fields.  The  Bible  does  not  really  mean 
what  first  one  heretic  and  then  another  chooses 
to  make  it  mean.  The  sacred  writers  of  the 
several  books  were  men  of  sense,  who  knew 
what  they  were  saying,  although,  no  doubt, 
with  regard  to  the  Old  Testament,  the  "Spirit 
of   Christ  which   was    in    them "  ^  caused    them 

*  Vine.  Common.  %  ii.  (al.  5) ;  cp.  Tert.  de  Pfixscript.  §  19. 
-   I  Pet.  i.  II. 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  1/ 

to  utter  or  write  words  which  were  beyond 
their  own  full  understanding.  If  not  always  as 
perspicuous  as  impatience  might  wish,  they 
intended  their  words  to  convey  one  sense,  and 
not  another.  There  is  a  positively  correct 
interpretation,  if  it  can  only  be  found.  Because 
of  the  infirmity  of  all  human  language,  even 
upon  inspired  lips,  the  letter  of  the  text  may 
be  patient  of  more  than  one  meaning  ;  but  there 
is  a  true  and  a  false  way  with  it.  Novatian 
and  Arius  cannot  really  compel  it  to  be  their 
partisan  ;  nor  for  that  matter  can  the  "  Catholic 
sense  "  either.  But  the  Catholic  sense  does  not 
need  to  resort  to  violence  or  fraud  over  the 
language  of  the  Bible.  If  the  Bible  is  really 
what  we  believe  it  to  be,  we  can  rest  secure. 
The  more  plainly  and  simply  we  can  go  to 
work  to  lay  bare  the  very  true  signification  of 
the  words,  the  more  sure  we  may  be  of  carry- 
ing the  argument. 

It  is,  then,  unless  I  am  grievously  wrong,  the 
best  mode  of  teaching  the  doctrine  of  Christ  and 
of  His  Church,  to  examine  with  the  most  entire 
candour,  and  with  every  aid  that   criticism   can 

C 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 


call  in,  the  language  of  the  New  Testament. 
We  might  hardly  have  thought  that  it  would 
be  necessary,  at  this  time  of  day,  to  fight  again 
the  battle  which  Erasmus  began  when  he  pub- 
lished the  Notes  of  Laurentius  Valla,  and  brought 
down  upon  himself  the  fury,  as  he  expected, 
of  those  who  were  the  professional  theologians  of 
the  age.  "  Intolerable  presumption,"  they  will 
say,  "that  a  mere  grammarian,  after  plaguing 
all  the  Schools,  should  allow  his  saucy  pen 
to  attack  even  the  sacred  Books."  "I  do  not 
think,"  replies  Erasmus,  "that  even  Theology, 
the  queen  of  all  sciences,  will  disdain  the  help- 
ing hands  and  dutiful  service  of  her  handmaid 
Grammar — not,  perhaps,  so  distinguished  an  ac- 
complishment as  some,  but  certainly  as  neces- 
sary as  any."^  It  was  strange,  however,  in  1895, 
to  read  the  apology  with  which  the  classical 
Professor  Blass  of  Halle  thought  it  proper  to 
preface  his  edition  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
vindicating  the  rights  of  the  philologist  as  against 
a  race  of  professional  theologians  very  differ- 
ent from  those  confronted  by  my  great  Dutch 
»  Ep.  ciii.  (p.  98  C,  E.  ed.  1706). 


INTRODUCTORY   LECTURE.  1 9 

predecessor,  but  found  at  length  to  be  no  less 
oppressive  to  the  lay  mind  of  Germany.  "  The 
theologians,"  Blass  supposes  some  one  to  say  to 
him  warningly,  "will  hardly  be  content  that  you 
have  invaded  their  own  province,  and  all  the 
less  because  they  will  think  that  you  despise 
them,  and  have  no  respect  for  the  things  on 
which  they  specially  pride  themselves."  And, 
indeed,  this  brilliant  scholar  owns  that  he  is 
inclined  to  think — and  apparently  his  no  less 
brilliant  admirer  in  our  own  island,  Professor 
Ramsay,  agrees  with  him — that  the  great  mass  of 
modern  scientific  German  theology  is  only  like 
a  morass  on  which  nothing  can  be  built,  and 
that  wherever,  as  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
the  scientific  theologians  found  firm  ground, 
they  have  industriously  covered  it  up  with  mud 
to  look  like  a  morass,  in  order  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  again  building  upon  morasses.  This 
judgment  is  the  judgment  of  Professor  Blass  ; 
I  do  not  wish  to  make  it  my  own. 

The  help  of  the  linguist  cannot,  indeed,  be 
too  warmly  welcomed  in  the  exegesis  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  all  the  more  if,  in  addition 


20  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

to  a  thorough  knowledge  of  classical  Greek,  he 
possesses  that  historical  sense  of  movement  and 
change  in  the  value  of  words,  which  Blass  him- 
self so  markedly  shows.  There  are,  it  may  be 
admitted,  wide  differences  in  this  respect  between 
various  New  Testament  writers  ;  and  it  would 
not  be  safe  to  apply  to  a  great  part  of  the  Acts, 
or  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  a  grammatical 
or  philological  canon  which  is  required  for  an 
exact  study  of  the  Gospels,  or  even  of  St.  Paul. 
But  taking  the  New  Testament  Greek  as  a 
whole,  it  seems  to  me  undeniable  that,  for  in- 
stance, the  indeterminate  character  of  Hebrew 
tenses,  whether  directly  or  through  the  medium 
of  the  LXX.,  has  affected  aorists  and  perfects 
so  that  they  cannot  always  be  counted  upon  to 
mean  the  same  as  they  would  in  Thucydides 
or  Plato.  With  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
conjunction  Vi^a  in  view,  it  seems  to  me 
misleading  to  insist  that  everywhere  in  the 
New  Testament  it  is  to  have  a  final  meaning. 
Again,  metaphors  that  were  once  fresh  and 
vigorous  have  become  worn-out.  An  t/c/BaAXcfv 
has  ceased  to  express,  in  every  instance,  forcible 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  21 

ejection.  An  v-KioTnuZ^^iv  no  longer  means,  as 
we  hear  affirmed  in  sermons,  to  "beat  black 
and  blue,"  though  it  once  had  done  so.  A 
TpayQ\\.iC'cL\\  which  appears  to  offer  so  vivid  and 
picturesque  a  metaphor,  disappoints  us  to  tlie 
extent  of  being  scarcely  able  to  hazard  a  guess 
as  to  what  it  originally  meant.  A  k-tvoii',  upon 
which  so  much  has  sometimes  been  made  to 
turn,  does  not  exactly  mean  '^to  empty,"  but 
has  passed  through  various  shades  of  meaning, 
such  as  "to  exhaust"  (in  the  natural  sense),  until 
it  comes  to  mean  something  like  "to  reduce  the 
force,  or  significance,  or  reputation  of  a  thing." 
Instances  like  these  teach  us  to  use  caution  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  New  Testament  language. 
But  they  by  no  means  teach  us,  as  I  have 
frequently  heard  it  suggested,  though  never, 
I  think,  by  Cambridge  men,  that  New  Testament 
Greek  cannot  be  trusted,  and  that  you  can  drive 
grammatical  accuracy  too  far.  Quite  the  con- 
trary ;  they  teach  that  we  must  seek  after  a 
special  refinement  of  accuracy,  which  may  enable 
us  to  determine  what  point  in  its  history  a 
word    or    a  construction   has   reached,    so   as    to 


22  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

define   with  perfect  precision    what    it    denoted 
for  its  writer. 

Here  in  England,  and  especially  at  Cambridge, 
we  have  long  been  accustomed  to  that  com- 
bination which  Professor  Blass  desires  to  see, 
of  first-rate  linguistic  scholars,  who  are  at 
the  same  time  scientific  theologians.  The 
benefit  which  they  have  conferred  upon  Dog- 
matic Theology  by  their  exegetical  work  is 
beyond  calculation.  What  might  we  not  have 
possessed,  if  only  the  series  of  great  Cam- 
bridge editions  had  not  come  to  what  seems 
an  untimely  end  .?  Alas !  we  have  not  been 
permitted  to  see  a  single  book  of  the  New 
Testament  edited  by  the  hand  of  Dr.  Hort. 
How  the  specimens  of  exegesis  scattered  up 
and  down  in  those  little  posthumous  volumes  of 
his  make  us  long  for  something  more  connected 
in  the  same  line !  Meanwhile,  Dr.  Joseph 
Mayor  has  done  much  to  console  us  for  not 
having  one  of  the  works  which  (as  his  graceful 
dedication  says)  we  were  desiring,  by  the 
extraordinary  erudition  of  his  St.  James.  The 
late  Dr.  Evans,  in  his  unique  manner,  gave  us 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  23 

some  years  ago,  a  Commentary  upon  the  1^'irst 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and  Dr.  Gifford  a 
Commentary  upon  the  l'4)istle  to  the  Romans, 
not  undeserving;-  of  a  phice  amoni;-  the  threat 
Cambridge  Commentaries.  The  supremacy  of 
the  latter  among  English  works  on  its  own 
subject  is  now  more  than  threatened  by  Oxford 
hands,  in  the  Commentary  of  my  revered  school- 
fellow who  holds  the  Lady  Margaret  Professor- 
ship there,  Dr.  Sanday,  in  collaboration  with  a 
younger  scholar.  But  there  are  sad  gaps  yet 
to  be  filled  up.  "  Sound  criticism  and  explana- 
tion of  the  New  Testament  records,"  says  Mr. 
Page  of  the  Charterhouse,  in  his  new  school- 
book  on  the  Acts,  "  must  be  the  basis  of  Christian 
theology,  but  English  scholars  seem  to  shrink 
from  the  work,  so  that,  for  example,  there  is  at 
the  present  time  no  English  Commentary  on  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  which  is  approximately  first- 
rate."  There  is  still  plenty  of  exegetical  work 
to  do. 

To  the  ranks  of  those  who  are  engaged  in 
this  work,  so  far  as  oral  instruction  is  concerned, 
I    humbly    hope    for   the    future    to    be   joined  ; 


24  INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE. 

and  if,  in  doing  so,  I  aim  especially  at  eliciting 
the  doctrinal  conceptions  of  the  great  first 
master-builders  of  Christian  theology,  I  do  not 
wish  it  to  be  thought  that  I  intend  to  treat  their 
writings  as  a  mere  antiquarian  storehouse  or 
quarry  for  criticism.  Any  one  who  comes  to 
the  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  must,  if  he 
would  learn  their  meaning  aright,  approach 
them  as  a  living  and  thrice-sacred  thing.  If  we 
kneel  hushed  at  Christ's  holy  Table,  knowing 
that  there  is  more  in  the  Sacrament  there 
offered  to  us  than  even  faith  can  fully  perceive, 
so  with  not  less  awe  must  we  deal  with  these 
words,  some  of  which  are  His  very  own,  and 
the  rest  words  that  sprang  from  the  hearts  of 
His  chosen  witnesses  under  the  pressure  of  the 
newly  given  Spirit  of  God.  It  would  be  better 
for  the  student  himself  that  he  should  suffer  a 
partial  misunderstanding  of  the  meaning  of  the 
words,  while  his  "  spirit  burns  within "  him  at 
being  admitted  to  so  sublime  a  colloquy,  than 
that  he  should  draw  the  most  correct  conclusions 
without  recognition  of  the  Divine  Voice  from 
which  he  learned  them.     But   for*  the   Church's 


INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.  2$ 


sake,  for  the  sake  of  the  souls  to  whom  pre- 
sumably all  attendants  at  a  Divinity  Professor's 
lectures  are  to  minister,  both  thini^s  are  earnestly 
to  be  souL^ht  after — the  most  delicate  and  exact 
appreciation  of  the  meaning  of  the  phrases 
before  us,  and  the  adoring  discernment  of 
Him  who  through  them  is  addressing  Himself 
to  us. 


BISHOP  PADDOCK  LECTURES. 

LECTURE   I. 

THE   HISTORICAL   METHOD   OF    STUDYING    OUR 
lord's    LIFE   UPON   EARTH. 

Amidst  the  anxieties  caused  by  political  disagree- 
ment, the  Church  of  God  serves  as  a  powerful 
bond  between  nation  and  nation,  promoting 
counsels  of  charity  and  peace.  Blood,  the  proverb 
says,  is  thicker  than  water  ;  and  for  this  reason 
England  and  America  ought  to  be  always 
friends.  But  there  is  something  which  should 
be  more  effectual  in  the  maintenance  of  good 
relations  between  country  and  country  than  the 
closest  natural  ties  of  race.  It  is  the  common 
devotion  to  the  one  Divine  Lord,  who  became 
the  Son  of  Man,  and  the  Prince  of  Peace.  An 
English  Churchman  could  not  but  feel  a  peculiar 
pleasure,  and  even  a  kind  of  pride,  in  observing 
how  the  voice  of  the  truly  Catholic  Bishop  of  this 


OUR   LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH.  2 J 

great  city  made  itself  heard  a  few  weeks  ago,  at 
a  time  of  popular  excitement  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  in  accents  of  masculine  good  sense  and 
Christian  moderation.  I  hope  that  in  a  modest 
way  it  may  contribute  something  in  the  same 
direction,  if  a  student  comes  from  the  quiet  courts 
and  precincts  of  Canterbury  and  Cambridge  to 
speak  to  American  fellow-students  about  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  "  both  theirs  and  ours."  ^  I 
would  wish  sincerely  to  thank  those  who  have 
done  me  the  honour  of  inviting  me  to  give  these 
lectures,  and  I  pray  that  the  work  may  move  us 
all  to  a  more  heartfelt  and  a  more  intelligent 
worship  of  our  Blessed  Saviour. 

The  special  question  which  I  am  permitted 
to  discuss  with  you,  gentlemen,  is  one  of  the 
greatest  practical  importance  for  the  Christian 
life.  Whatever  makes  our  Blessed  Lord  a  real, 
living,  intelligible  figure  to  the  reader  of  the 
Gospels  has  an  effect  upon  men  deeper  and  more 
powerful  than  any  system  of  scientific  ethics, 
however  convincing  that  s\'stem  may  be.  If 
Christ    is   treated   as   a   being   of   an    altogether 

'   I  Cor.  i.  2. 


28         HISTORICAL  METHOD  OF  STUDYING 

different  nature  from  our  own — a  God  who  only 
assumed  a  guise  of  humanity  in  order  to  converse 
visibly  with  men,  without  Himself  being  affected 
by  the  nature  which  He  assumed, — then  it  is 
vain  for  us  to  turn  to  Him  for  sympathy,  or  even 
for  example.  In  a  career  of  that  kind,  a  pattern 
might  be  set  before  us  of  a  pure  and  lofty 
morality  ;  but,  as  the  motives  and  feelings  which 
animate  the  conduct  of  such  a  being  are  not  our 
motives  and  feelings,  therefore,  while  we  may 
wonder  and  perhaps  adore,  we  are  not  greatly 
inspired  to  imitate,  and  hardly  even  be  drawn  to 
love.  If  Christ  is  not  a  man.  His  life  may  be 
a  visible  embodiment  of  the  Law,  but  it  is  not 
a  Gospel, — or  only  a  Gospel  inasmuch,  as,  in 
consequence  of  it,  for  reasons  difficult  in  that 
case  to  apprehend,  our  sins  are  forgiven  us  and 
eternal  life  is  promised.  He  Himself  remains 
aloof,  unknown,  unrevealed. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  a  certain  current  of 
modern  speculations  about  the  life  of  Christ  on 
earth  threatens  to  rob  those  whom  it  touches 
of  some  things  which  we  can  ill  afford  to  lose. 
To    insist   unguardedly    upon    the    appearances 


OUR    LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH.  29 

of  limitation  which  occur  from  time  to  time  in 
the  evangelical  records,  is  to  imperil  our  confi- 
dence in  Christ  as  a  teacher  of  Divine  truth.) 
The  mischief  lies  not  always  in  what  such 
interpreters  actually  say,  but  rather  in  what 
their  teaching  seems  to  imply.  If  it  is  suggested 
that  our  Lord  occasionally,  because  He  knew 
no  better,  used  arguments  which  were  convincing 
to  those  who  heard  Him,  but  which  rightly  fail 
to  convince  us,  it  becomes  hard  to  know  why 
we  should  be  invited  to  place  absolute  trust  in 
the  accuracy  of  His  revelation  as  a  whole. 
/Supposing  that  in  His  condescension  to  our( 
human  conditions  He  made  Himself  liable  to' 
mistake,  can  we  be  sure  that  He  was  never 
mistaken  }  If  He  made  one  assertion  without 
adequate  thought  or  acquaintance  with  the 
subject,  how  can  we  feel  certain  that  He  did 
not  make  more  such  assertions }  Clearly  it 
is  necessary  to  look  carefully  at  what  the 
Gospel  records  convey  to  us  in  regard  to  this 
matter.  May  we  hope  to  find  that  they  give  us 
room  to  believe  in  an  Incarnation  which  made 
the  Son  of  God,  on  the  one  hand,  a  true  Man 


30  HISTORICAL  METHOD  OF  STUDYING 


like  ourselves — only  still  more  truly  man, — and, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  man  capable  of  bringing 
to  us,  by  word  as  well  as  by  deed,  a  full  and 
unimpeachable  manifestation  of  God  ? 

This  question  presses  upon  us  at  the  present 
day  in  a  manner  in  which  it  did  not  press 
upon  former  ages.  The  ancient  Fathers  of  the 
Church  were  little  concerned,  as  a  rule,  with 
matters  of  historical  criticism.  The  debt  which 
we  owe  to  them  is  not  that  of  having  thoroughly 
sifted  questions  of  this  kind.  No  one  can 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  their  testimony 
to  the  tradition  which  they  had  inherited  of  a 
Christ  who  was  perfect  God  and  perfect  man. 
Vigilantly  and  consistently  they  rejected  and 
refuted  every  explanation  of  the  Lord's  person 
which  infringed  this  twofold  belief — down  to  the 
Monotheletism  which  merged  His  human  faculty 
of  will  in  the  Divine,  and  to  the  Adoptianism 
which  made  Him  in  His  human  nature  only 
gradually  to  partake  of  that  nearness  to  the 
Father  which  was  the  property  of  His  person 
before  the  Incarnation,  Through  evil  report 
and  good  report,  like  Athanasius,  they  defended 


OUR  LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH.  3  I 

what  thc)'  justly  considered  to  be  a  trust 
committed  to  them  ;  and,  through  their  labours, 
it  has  come  down  to  us  unimpaired.  We  may, 
indeed,  with  the  utmost  profit  verify  and  test 
their  teaching;  on  the  Incarnation  of  Christ, 
but  we  can  never  affect  to  be  independent  of 
it.  The  definitions  of  Niccxa  and  Chalcedon 
are  bindinc^  upon  us,  not  only  because  we  have 
consented  to  be  bound  by  them  under  peril  of 
ejection  from  the  Church,  but  also  because 
the  more  we  work  upon  the  materials  at  our 
command,  the  more  abundantly  clear  it  becomes 
that  no  theory  of  the  Person  of  our  Redeemer 
answers  to  the  facts  except  the  theory  of  the 
Fathers — two  whole  and  perfect  natures  coexist- 
ing and  united  in  the  single  and  indivisible 
person  of  the  Son  of  God  made  flesh. 

This  the  Fathers  did  for  us.  They  saved  their 
spiritual  descendants  from  going  off  into  fruitless 
investigations  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the 
left,  and  gave  them  a  clear  and  mighty  formula 
by  which  to  express  the  cardinal  fact  of  history. 
But  there  was  much  which  the  Fathers  could  not 
do.      Each    age   has    its  own   problems   and   its 


own  favourite  lines  of  thought.  The  faith  of 
Christ  is  too  large  to  have  been  at  all  points 
apprehended  by  the  saints  of  any  age,  except 
by  the  first  inspired  teachers.  The  main  object 
of  the  Fathers  was  to  set  forth  the  perfect 
Godhead  of  Christ :  it  is  hardly  too  much  to 
jsay  that  they  were  less  consciously  interested 
[in  His  manhood.  When,  indeed,  His  manhood 
was  directly  assailed,  as  by  Docetists,  and 
Manichees,  and  Apollinarians,  the  Catholic 
champions  were  ready  for  the  defence  ;  but  it 
was  upon  the  other  side  of  the  great  mystery 
that  they  habitually  dwelt.  How,  in  the 
actual  experience  of  that  sacred  Life,  the  two 
natures  were  accommodated  to  each  other,  was 
not  a  subject  upon  which  they  felt  greatly  moved 
to  meditate.  )  If  occasionally  a  teacher  of  unusual 
vigour  and  independence,  like  Hilary  of  Poitiers, 
or  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  concerns  himself  with  it, 
we  find  how  great  was  the  practical  danger  of 
sacrificing  the  one  half  or  the  other  of  the  great 
truth, — of  surrendering  the  persistence  of  the 
"  form  of  God "  when  the  Lord  became  man, 
as    sometimes    (so    far    as    words    go)     Hilary 


OUR   LORD'S  LIFE    UFO.V  EARTH. 


does,^  or  of  making  the  manhood  practically 
little  more  than  an  appearance,  as  Hilary  more 
often  and  Cyril  habitually  does.  It  cannot, 
I  think,  be  doubted  that,  for  one  reason  and 
another,  the  prevailing  tone  of  Christian  thought 
at  length  tended  towards  the  latter  type  ;  and 
through  much  of  the  mediaeval  theology,  which 
has  left  its  mark  deeply  imprinted  upon  the 
Roman  theology  of  to-day,  is  observable  a  mini- 
mising tone  with  regard  to  our  Lord's  conde- 
scension in  becoming  man,  and  a  reluctance  to 
admit  the  entire  force  of  the  language  of  Scrip- 
ture which  makes  a  solemn  reality  of  His  human 
conditions  of  life. 

Modern  studies,  often  contemptuously  im- 
patient of  the  older  teaching,  have  gone  into 
a  different  region  altogether.  Not  to  speak 
now  of  the  speculations  of  the  earlier  Lutheran 
divines,  like  Thomasius,  which  were  primarily 
theological,  and  not  historical,  since  the  days 
of  Schleiermacher  and  of  Baur  the  historical 
spirit    has    been    engaged    in    endeavouring    to 

'  For   example,    dc   Trin.    viii.    45,    Exinanivit   so    ex    Dei 
forma,  id  est,  ex  eo  quod  Djqualis  Deo  eral. 

D. 


34        HISTORICAL  METHOD   OF  STUDYING 

reconstruct  the  Gospel  narrative,  with  the  desire 
of  finding  out  what  it  was  that  actually  took 
place  when  Jesus  sojourned  among  men.  The 
same  critical  examination  to  which,  in  secular 
matters,  Niebuhr  accustomed  his  contemporaries, 
has  been  unsparingly  applied  to  the  four  Evan- 
gelists, and  to  the  New  Testament  in  general. 
All  possible  material  has  been  brought  together 
to  present  to  us  such  a  picture  of  the  background 
of  our  Saviour's  career  as  is  to  be  found,  to  name 
only  the  crowning  instance,  in  the  great  work  of 
SchUrer.  Lives  of  Christ,  from  those  of  Strauss 
and  Renan,  to  those  of  Farrar,  Geikie,  and 
Edersheim,  have  endeavoured  to  familiarise  us 
not  only  with  the  scenes  amidst  which  He  lived, 
and  the  archaeology  of  the  period,  but  also  with 
our  Lord's  own  thoughts  and  feelings  and  aims, 
"Studies  in  the  Gospels" — Trench's,  Godet's, 
Fairbairn's,  and  many  more — seek  to  throw 
light  upon  particular  episodes ;  while  books 
like  Ecce  Homo  and  Pastor  Pastoriim  have 
taught  us,  with  deep  insight  and  practical 
sympathy,  to  watch  our  Blessed  Lord  moving 
before    us    in   the   Gospels,  as  we   might    watch 


OUR   LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH.  35 


any  other  figure,  to  see  for  ourselves  what  He 

is  making  for,  in  general  and  in  detail.  Art 
has  followed  in  the  same  direction,  until  ]\I. 
Tissot  has  depicted  for  us  a  whole  Life  of  Christ, 
amidst  the  very  scenery  of  Palestine,  and  in  all 
the  realism  of  Oriental  customs  and  costumes. 

It  is,  I  do  not  doubt,  a  wholesome  thing  for 
Christian  men  to  be  thus  brought  back  to  the 
Christ  of  history,  and  to  exchange  a  somewhat 
distant  and  intangible  conception,  such  as  the 
reverence  of  the  Church  has  often  held  forth,  for 
the  sympathetic  Jesus  in  flesh  and  blood  who 
was  presented  to  the  eyes  and  to  the  hands  of 
the  first  disciples.  In  preaching  Christ,  we  need 
to  return  to  that  which  is  simple,  moving,  life- 
like. Only  we  must  beware  that  in  coming  back 
to  the  Gospels,  we  come  back  without  losing 
or  forgetting  what  we  have  learned  from  the 
Apostolic  Epistles  and  from  the  Fathers.  It 
would  be  a  grievous  mistake  if  we  hoped  to 
learn  better  the  lesson  of  the  Gospels  by  begin- 
ning, as  the  first  disciples  did,  with  everything 
yet  to  find  out.  The  mistake  is  very  frequently 
inade.     It  is  assumed  by  German  writers  of  the 


36        HISTORICAL  METHOD   OF  STUDYING 

stamp  of  Beyschlag,  for  example,  not  to  mention 
still  less  orthodox  names,  that  the  Pauline 
theology,  and  of  course  still  more  the  Johannine, 
is  a  speculative  addition  to  the  primitive  Gospel, 
— the  Gospel  which  is  to  be  found  in  its  purest 
form  only  in  St.  Mark  and  certain  sections  of 
St.  Matthew.  According  to  such  teaching  wc 
must  discard  all  the  later  notions  of  the  person 
of  Christ  before  we  can  scientifically  consider 
the  narrative  of  His  career  ;  and  along  with  the 
Pauline  notions  of  His  person  we  must  discard 
also  those  accretions  of  a  mythical  kind  which, 
it  is  supposed,  have  gathered  around  the  original 
narrative,  such  as  the  stories  of  Christ's  birth 
and  infancy,  and  of  His  appearances  after  the 
resurrection. 

Against  this  method  of  reading  history  we 
must,  in  the  interests  of  history  as  well  as  of 
faith,  protest.  It  was  a  satisfaction  to  me  to 
be  told,  gentlemen  of  this  Seminary,  that  there 
is  among  you  even  a  kind  of  reaction 
against  some  of  the  most  modern  modes  of 
regarding  the  life  of  Christ.  Perhaps  it  is  one 
of  the  dangers  of  a  comparatively  new  country 


OUR   LORD'S  LIFE   UPON  EARTH. 


37 


like  this-in  England  we  consider  it  to  be  one 
of  tlie  dangers  of  Germany-to  strive,  whctlicr 
consciously  or  not,   after  something  novel   and 
advanced,    a   theory    or   an    anal>sis   that   shall 
eclipse     in     its    brilliant    audacity    that    which 
attracted    observation    last    year,    a    desperate 
anxiety   not    to    be    behind   the   times.     I    am 
thankful  that  you  have  no  such  ambitions.     A 
healthy  deference  to  what  scholars  and  devout 
men  have  said  before  us  is  no  bad  sign  in  any 
Christian    community-perhaps   least  of   all    in 
this.     If  we  wish,  for  some  purposes,  to  stud>- 
the  Gospels  afresh,  we  must  do  so  with  all  the 
advantage    of   the    great    Creeds   for  our  clue. 
Instead  of  beginning,  as  the  first  disciples  did, 
with  a  general  disposition  indeed  to  believe  in 
Christ-because  John  the  Baptist  had  predisposed 
them  to  believe,— but  not  knowing  and  scarcely 
guessing  what  that  belief  might  lead  them  to, 
we   begin    v\ith   the   results  of  their  completed 
discipleship.      For   us,    St.    John's    is    the    true 
model   of  a   Gospel,   which   starts   with  telling 
us  briefly  and  solemnly  what   He  is,  and  then 
traces    the    steps    by    which     He    came    to    be 


38        HISTORICAL   METHOD   OF  STUDYING 


recos^nised  as  such.  We  know  Him  at  the 
outset  to  be  very  God  of  very  God  ;  and  we 
desire  reverently  to  observe  how  this  Divine 
Person  acted  and  felt  in  the  new  conditions  into 
which  He  vouchsafed  to  come. 

In  order  that  any  inquiry  may  be  made  in  a 
scientific  manner,  it  is  necessary,  in  the  first 
instance,  to  make  sure  of  the  facts.  To  frame  a 
theory  first,  and  then  support  it  by  such  facts 
as  seem  capable  of  being  forced  into  the  service, 
while  ignoring  all  facts  of  an  opposite  character, 
is  never  likely  to  lead  to  a  sound  result.  Men 
may  indeed  frame  tentative  h}'potheses,  to  see 
how  they  will  work  ;  but  such  must  be  modestl}' 
put  forward,  and  their  authors  must  be  ready 
to  abandon  them,  or  modify  them,  when  a  larger 
observation  of  the  facts  demands  it.  This  holds 
true  with  regard  to  the  life  of  our  Blessed 
Lord,  as  much  as  it  does  with  regard  to  any 
other  scientific  inquiry.  It  is  not  my  purpose 
in  these  lectures  to  m'aintain  a  theory,  though 
very  likely  something  of  a  theory  may  naturally 
result  from  the  study  before  us.  Rather  I 
wish  to  make  a  somewhat  comprehensive  survey 


OUR  LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH.  39 


of  the  phenomena  of  the  case,  in  order  that  vvc 
may  judge  how  far  those  phenomena  arc  in 
agreement  with  any  of  the  particular  theories 
that  have  held  the  field  in  ancient  times  or  in 
modern.  In  order  to  see,  as  far  as  it  may  be 
given  us  to  see,  how  the  two  natures  met  in 
the  actual  experience  of  our  Lord/we  shall  do 
well  not  to  insist  upon  preconceived  notions  of 
how  they  must  have  met,  but  rather  to  look 
carefully  at  what  He  said  about  Himself,  and 
what  others  remarked  in  Him. 

In  this  connexion  I  need  make  no  apology 
for  using  the  Gospels  with  absolute  confidence. 
There  are  many  interesting  questions  as  yet 
unanswered  with  regard  to  the  composition  of 
the  Gos]3els — especially  of  the  first  three.  The 
problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  (which  is,  of 
course,  for  theological  purposes,  the  most  im- 
portant) is  a  simpler  problem  ;  and  I  believe 
it  to  have  been  in  the  main  solved.  Although 
critics  like  Jiilicher  still  hold  back  from  acknow- 
ledging that  Gospel  to  be  the  work  of  the  Apostle 
John,  I  cannot  but  think  that  such  scepticism 
(though    in  Jiilicher's   case  of   a    moderate   and 


v^ 


40        HISTORICAL  METHOD   OF  STUDYING 

fairly  reverent  kind)  is  belated  and  retrogressive.-^ 
Not  only  is  the  external  testimony  to  this 
Gospel  of  a  singularly  clear  and  cogent  kind, — 
not  only  are  its  delineations  of  character,  and  of 
parties  among  the  Jews,  and  so  on,  entirely  beyond 
the  range  of  a  composer  of  the  second  century, 
— but  from  the  time  of  Renan's  Vie  de  Jesus 
onwards,  men  not  swayed  by  ecclesiastical 
prepossessions  have  seen  that  it  contains  historical 
information  of  the  highest  value,  which  in  some 
cases  corrects  a  false  impression  which  might 
have  been  left  upon  us  by  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
and  in  other  cases  supplements  them  in  a 
way  which  makes  their  account  for  the  first 
time  intelligible.  How  far  the  discourses  of  our 
Lord  recorded  in  it  have  been  abridged,  syste- 
matized, altered  in  phraseology  by  long  medita- 
tion in  the  mind  of  the  Evangelist,  may  be 
matter  for  speculation  or  investigation  ;  but  I  do 
not  think  it  can  be  doubted  that  the  twentieth 


^  Perhaps  we  are  not  so  much  alarmed  as  some  might  be  at 
the  form  of  "academic  terrorism"  which  uses  the  threat — they 
are  J^Hcher's  own  words — that,  if  the  Apostle  John  wrote  this 
Gospel,  then  2  Peter  might  be  the  work  of  Simon  Peter  {Einlcit. 
in.  d.  N,T.,  p.  255). 


OUJ^   LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH.  4 1 

century  will  pay  more  deference  to  tlie  Gospel 
of  St.  John  than  the  nineteenth  has  done, 
and  that  as  the  tendency  of  free  criticism  has 
been  to  accept  more  and  more  of  the  Pauline 
Epistles  as  genuine,  so  the  tendency  will  be  to 
see  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  that  which  it  claims 
for  itself,  to  be  the  work  of  the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved. 

The  inter-relation  of  the  three  S}'noptists  is 
more  difficult  to  determine,  and  perhaps  the 
questions  concerning  it  will  never  be  set  at  rest. 
None  of  the  theories  which  have  been  pro- 
pounded are  free  from  difficulty  ;  and  we  still 
await  the  discoverer  of  the  master  scheme.  But 
even  those  who  think  that  they  discern  legendary 
elements  in  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  or  even 
in  the  present  form  of  St.  Mark,  are  ready 
nowadays  for  the  most  part  to  confess  the 
sobriety  and  good  faith  of  the  narrators  and 
the  inherent  likelihood  of  the  portrait  of  Jesus 
which  in  the  main  they  draw.  For  us  who 
belong  to  the  Catholic  Church  it  is  a  matter 
of  comparative  indifference  who  wrote  our 
Gospels,    and    how   they  came   to   write   them. 


42        HISTORICAL  METHOD   OF  STUDYING 

We  accept  the  four  Gospels  as  the  early  Church 
accepted  them,  as  conveying  to  us  the  Holy 
Spirit's  manifold  delineation  of  the  life  and 
character  of  our  Redeemer.  It  may  be  true 
that  none  of  the  four  was,  in  the  first  instance, 
written  as  a  mere  history  ;  they  are  works  of 
edification,  and  interpretations  of  the  history  :  ^ 
but  for  our  purpose  they  are  all  the  more 
valuable  for  that.  They  show  us  the  views  of 
Christ  entertained  by,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  the 
highest,  soundest,  most  representative  teachers 
in  the  Church  of  the  first  century,  as  distinguished 
from  the  fantastic,  inconsistent,  and  unsatisfying 
conceptions  of  the  Gospel-makers  of  the  century 
after.  If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  historical  character  at 
all,  this  is  what  He  was  ;  and  He  must  have 
been  such  as  they  describe,  in  order  to  produce 
the  effect  upon  His  followers  which  we  know  that 
He  produced. 

And  not  only  do  we  feel  a  just  confidence  in 

the    general    portraiture    of    Christ    which    the 

Gospels  contain  ;   we  believe  that  even   in  the 

detailed     expressions     the    superintendence    of 

^  Jlilicher  Einl.  p.  1 84 ;  cp.  p.  230. 


OUR   LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  KARTIL  43 

the  Holy  Spirit  has  been  at  work.  Taking 
Christ  for  our  i^uide,  we  are  bound  to  acknow- 
ledge that  even  in  the  Old  Testament  nothing 
is  accidental  and  insignificant.  "The  Scripture 
cannot  be  broken,"  or  "undone."^  So  He  said 
one  day,  with  regard  to  what  might  have 
seemed  to  us  but  a  casual  or  conventional 
phrase  in  one  of  the  Psalms.  It  would  have 
been  easy,  and  perhaps  not  irreverent,  to  have 
thouq;ht  that  the  words,  "  I  said,  Ye  are  c;;ods," 
were  an  ordinary  instance  of  Eastern  hyperbole 
— that  "gods"  does  not  really  contain  the  tre- 
mendous meaning  which  has  grown  into  the 
word.  But  such  explanations  did  not  satisfy  our 
Lord.  He  saw  in  the  use  of  that  language, 
whatever  ma\'  have  been  the  process  by  which 
it  came  to  be  so  used,  a  witness  in  the  Jewish 
"  law  "  that  Godhead  is  not  so  far  off,  so  incom- 
municable, as  they  thought ;  and  He  said  that 
those  who  would  reduce  the  expression  to  a 
poetical  exaggeration  were  breaking  up  or  un- 
doing the  Scripture.  If  this  be  so,  no  Christian 
can  doubt  that  every  sentence,  and  every  turn  of 

*   St.  John  X.  35  :   oh  SvvaTai  Xvdrjvai. 


44        HISTORICAL   METHOD   OF  STUDYING 

a  sentence,  in  the  New  Testament  has  been  at 
least  as  much  the  object  of  the  inspiring  Spirit's 
care.  There,  as  elsewhere,  it  may  not  have  been 
always  His  design  to  secure  a  literal,  a  pedantic, 
exactitude  of  historical  statement.  Who  cares, 
for  instance,  whether  there  were  two  demoniacs 
healed  at  Gadara,  or  one ;  two  blind  men  at 
the  gate  of  Jericho,  or  one }  So  long  as  we 
may  be  certain  that  the  Evangelists  in  such 
matters  were  honest  and  truthful,  sought  the 
best  information,  and  never  fabricated  or  embel- 
lished the  events  which  they  narrate,  it  is  enough 
for  us.  The  minutiae  of  the  narrative  in  such 
matters  go  for  little.  But  it  is  otherwise  with 
phrases  which  have  a  bearing  upon  the  very 
person  and  character  of  the  Lord  Himself. 
Here  the  Evangelists  utter  the  mind  of  the 
Church  of  their  own  illuminated  time.  Any 
thing  that  was  out  of  keeping  with  that  con- 
ception of  Christ  which  the  Apostles  had  in- 
culcated upon  the  Church,  would  have  jarred 
upon  the  sensibilities  of  the  assemblies  of  the 
faithful,  in  which  the  Gospels  were  read  aloud. 
The    more   we    admit    that   the    works    of   the 


OUR  LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH.  45 


Evangelists  are  primarily  works  of  edifica-  ^ 
tion  rather  than  of  history,  the  more  we  feel 
that  wc  can  rely  upon  their  representations  of 
Christ's  person.  And  as  the  tendency  in  the 
Church  was  to  distrust  more  and  more  any 
language  which  might  be  thought  derogatory 
to  Christ's  Divine  power  and  knowledge,  we 
may  with  the  greater  attentiveness  observe 
those  sayings  which  particularly  emphasize  the 
human  nature  and  the  voluntary  humiliation 
of  the  Son  of  God.  Such  sayings  are  a  sign  of 
an  early  date,  and  of  the  historical,  as  opposed 
to  the  romantic,  character. 

And  certainly,  the  more  we  read  them,  the  ; 
more  we  feel  that  the  Gospels — St.  John's  as  ' 
much  as  any — contain  the  history  of  a  Man 
indeed.  We  do  not  often,  it  is  true,  use  that 
term  in  speaking  of  our  Saviour,  because  it  re- 
quires to  be  guarded.  To  say  that  He  was  "a 
Man  "  seems  for  the  moment  to  imply  that  He 
was  a  man  and  nothing  more  ;  and  we  should 
utterly  misunderstand  the  Gospels  if  we  saw  in 
them  the  story  of  one  who  was  only  a  man. 
And,  besides  this,  when  Christ  is  called  "a  Man," 


46        HISTORICAL  METHOD   OF  STUDYING 

it  sounds  as  if  He  were  considered  only  an  inci- 
dental specimen  of  the  race,  like  one  of  ourselves, 
and  not,  as  He  is  in  fact,  the  universal  Man,  in 
whom  the  whole  of  human  nature  is  gathered 
up— the  Representative  and  Head  of  the  entire 
species.  Nevertheless,  this  language  is  used  of 
Him  in  the  New  Testament,  and  there  is  a 
certain  loss  in  shrinking  from  applying  it  to 
Him.  It  is  not  only  the  hostile,  or  casual,  or 
uninstructed  onlookers  in  the  Gospels  who  call 
Him  so,  as  they  naturally  would, — "We  know 
that  this  man  is  a  sinner,"  "Come,  see  a  man 
that  told  me  all  things  that  ever  I  did."  Our 
Lord  condescends  to  call  Himself  so.  "Ye 
seek  to  kill  Me,  a  Man  (civOpojirov)  that  hath 
told  you  the  truth."  ^  St.  Paul  calls  Him  so. 
"There  is  one  Mediator  between  God  and 
men,  the  Man  (avOptoTroo)  Christ  Jesus." '-^  And 
sometimes  a  still  more  significant  word  in 
the  original  is  used.  The  word  dvijp  differs 
from  avOpwirog,  not  only  in  distinguishing  the 
sex — man  as  opposed  to  woman  ;  it  brings  out 
the  fulness  of  personal  dignity.     If  a  company 

^  St.  John  viii.  40.  ^  i  Tim.  ii.  5. 


OUR  LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH.  47 


of  men  is  addressed  by  the  title  of  in>i)i)(,)7r(n, 
they  are  appealed  to  on  the  strenj^th  of  their 
common  nature  ;  if  they  are  addressed  as  uvcpLc, 
they  are  appealed  to  on  the  strength  of  their 
distinct  individuality.  And  this  is  the  bold 
word  which  is  several  times  employed  in  the 
New  Testament  in  speaking  of  our  Lord.  It  is 
placed  by  the  Evangelist  St.  John  in  the  mouth 
of  the  Baptist:  "This  is  He  of  whom  I  said, 
After  me  cometh  a  Man  {av{\())  who  hath  been 
preferred  before  me, because  He  was  before  me  ;"^ 
and  by  St.  Luke  in  that  of  Cleopas  on  the 
evening  after  the  Resurrection :  iyiv^ro  av})f) 
Trpo(J){iTi}g^ — a  respectful  turn  of  phrase,  which 
cannot  be  rendered  in  English.  St.  Peter,  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost,  so  describes  our  Lord : 
"Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  Man  (avSpa)  displayed 
unto  you  by  God  ; "  ^  and  St.  Paul  at  Athens, 
speaking  of  that  which  is  now  present  and 
is  yet  to  come,  still  ascribes  to  our  Lord 
that  fulness — His  own,  and  not  another's — of 
personal  human  life,  when  he  says  that  God 
intends  "to  judge   the   world    in    righteousness 

'   St.  John  i.  30.  2  tjt_  Luke  \.\iv.  19.  ^  Acts  ii.  22. 


48        HISTORICAL   METHOD   OF  STUDYING 

(ev  avdpl  to  wfna^v)  in  a  Man  whom  He  marked 
out."  1 

We  may,  then,  with  good  reason,  expect  to  see 
a  truly  human  Hfe  lived  out  before  us  in  the 
scenes  which  the  Gospels  record.  And  wonder- 
ful it  is  that  the  sacred  historians,  writing  at  a 
time  when  the  thought  of  believers  had  under- 
gone so  great  a  change  with  regard  to  Christ, — 
when  by  the  Holy  Spirit  they  knew  Him  no 
longer  after  the  flesh, — should  have  been  able 
so  simply  to  relate  the  events  which  took  place 
before  that  change  of  thought  came.  Knowing 
Him  to  be  indeed,  and  to  have  been  throughout, 
very  God  of  very  God,  they  have  yet  set  down  for 
us,  in  a  manner  which  nothing  short  of  inspiration 
could  have  accomplished,  truthfully  and  without 
exaggeration,  the  life  as  it  was  actually  lived,  so 
that  in  the  words  of  Erasmus,  which  have  of 
late  years  been  brought  to  the  notice  of  so  many 
in  the  beginning  of  Westcott's  and  Hort's  Greek 
Testament,  "They  reproduce  the  living  image 
of  that  sacred  mind,  and  bring  before  us  Christ 
Himself,  speaking,  healing,  dying,  rising  again, 
^  Acts  xvii.  •^i. 


OUR  lord's  life  upon  earth.         49 


present  in  every  aspect,  in  such  a  way  that  we 
should  less  truly  see  llim,  if  we  were  able 
to  fix  upon  Him  our  very  eyes."    ) 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  four  Gospels,  which 
thus  set  Him  before  us,  have  received,  in  the 
Catholic  Church,  an  honour  beyond  even  those 
inspired  Epistles  or  those  inspired  Prophecies 
which  interpreted,  before  or  after,  the  person 
and  the  work  of  Christ.  They  were  enthroned 
at  the  great  Councils  of  the  early  Church,  that 
Christ  in  them  might,  as  it  were,  speak  for 
Himself.  The  ancient  ritual  of  the  Church 
surrounded  the  reading  of  them  with  expressive 
symbolism.  None  below  the  order  of  Deacons 
might  read  them  aloud  to  the  assembly.  Others 
might  read  the  Epistle  ;  and  the  people  might 
sit  at  their  ease  to  listen  to  it.  But  it  was 
otherwise  with  the  Holy  Gospel.  With  solemn 
procession  and  special  benedictions,  with  lighted 
tapers  and  incense,  and  with  acclamations,  while 
all  sprang  to  their  feet,  and  the  priest  turned 
round  from  his  station  at  the  altar,  the  sacred 
words  were  read  aloud  which  Christ  either  spoke 
Himself,  or  which  described  some  mighty  action 

E 


50  OUR  LORD'S  LIFE    UPON  EARTH. 

of  His.  It  is,  in  truth,  a  Real  Presence  of  Christ 
which  comes  among  us  at  such  a  time.  The 
holy  Sacrament  of  His  Body  and  Blood  does 
not  more  surely  bring  Him  to  us  than  this,  His 
blessed  Word.  In  the  Gospels  we  may  reverently 
study  Him  for  ourselves,  and  mark  His  very 
gestures  and  the  emotions  of  His  heart.  No 
less  than  the  first  disciples  themselves,  though 
with  fuller  knowledge  than  they  at  the  time 
possessed,  we  may  become  spectators  of  each 
solemn  event ;  and  questioning  Him,  as  they  did, 
where  we  do  not  understand,  we  may,  if  we  will, 
attain  by  His  grace  to  a  knowledge  of  Him  and 
His  ways  which  is  not  transmitted  and  remote, 
but  direct  and  immediate. 


LECTURE   II. 

THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   OUR    LORD'S   MORAL 
CHARACTER   AS   MAN. 

Assuming  that  we  may  rely  with  entire  con- 
fidence upon  the  Gospels,  and  upon  the  inspired 
comments  of  the  New  Testament  writers,  for 
guidance  in  the  accomplishment  of  our  task, 
we  proceed  to  ©^tamine  with  all  reverence 
what  is  disclosed  Ho  us  of  the  conditions  under 
which  our  Blessed  Lord  lived  His  life  as  a 
true  Man  upon  earth.  We  begin  with  the  de- 
velopment of  His  ethical  character,  character 
is  the  moral  configuration  of  the  soul,  which 
results  from  the  grouping  and  blending  of  the 
various  kinds  of  moral  habits  ;  which  habits 
arc  themselves  the  product  of  repeated  acts 
of    moral   choice,    made   amidst    the   changing 


52  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

circumstances  of  life  and  in  accordance  with, 
or  in  defiance  of,  the  natural  bent  of  tempera- 
ment. 

It  must  be  said  at  the  outset,  that  both  the 
record  of  the  facts,  and  our  knowledge  of  what 
Christ  is,  make  plain  the  inference  that  He  came 
into  our  world  without  that  vitiation  of  His  first 
human  movements  which  we  call  by  the  name 
of  original  sin.  He  alone  was  conceived  with- 
out sin,  because,  as  St.  Bernard  says,  He  alone 
was  holy  before  His  conception.^  It  is  not 
possible  that  He  should  have  been  willing  to 
attach  to  Himself  a  nature  which  was  actually 
corrupt,  as  some  have  dreamed. 

Indeed,  I  do  not  see  how,  with  any  clearness 
of  mind,  we  can  think  of  sin,  or  of  holiness 
either,  as  inherent  in  a  nature,  distinguished 
from  the  personalities  who  possess  that  nature. 
Those  who,  following  Edward  Irving,  imagine 
our  Lord  to  have  assumed  humanity  in  a 
fallen  and  depraved  condition,  are  really,  with- 
out knowing  it,  reaffirming,  in  another  form, 
the  Manichsean  doctrine  that  matter  is  itself 
^  Bern.  Ep.  clxxiv. 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL   CHARACTER. 


cvil.^  They  attach  moral  attributes,  not  to  the 
movements  of  the  personal  will,  but  to  the 
stuff  upon  which  and  through  which  the  will 
has  to  work.  This  is  a  radically  false  and  un- 
christian conception  of  ethical  good  and  evil. 
Sin  does  not  reside  in  flesh,  as  flesh,  or  in  nature, 
as  nature,  but  in  the  choice  made  by  personal 
wills,  whether  they  be  the  wills  of  creatures  in 
fleshly  nature,  or  the  wills  of  creatures  in  other 
natures.  By  the  mysterious  law  which  links 
together  the  fortunes  of  all  the  free-willed 
beings  who  come  of  the  stock  of  Adam  and 
are  but  men,  the  very  earliest  stirrings  of  per- 
sonal human  life  are  not  free  from  moral  evil  ; 
but  the  evil  lies  in  the  way  in  which  those 
personalities  themselves  act,  and  not  in  the 
accidental  circumstances  into  which  they  are 
plunged.  If  men  were  not  themselves  sinners, 
but  only  spirits  unwillingly  involved  in  bad 
conditions,  then  they  would  deserve  nothing 
but  pity,  and  not  blame.  The  guilt  of  sin  lies 
in  the  man  himself,  not  in  his  nature  apart  from 

*  Sec  Mill's  remarks,  in  his  Five  Scnnois  on  the  Temptation^ 
pp.  35,  152,  153  (ed.  1844). 


54  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 


him.  And  if  sin  could  be  supposed  to  lie  in  a 
nature,  or  in  certain  conditions  of  a  nature, 
apart  from  the  personal  will  of  those  who 
belong  to  that  nature,  then  for  any  one  willingly 
to  enter  into  that  nature  so  conditioned  must 
needs  be  a  sinful  act,  whatever  might  be  the 
ultimate  purpose  of  the  act.  Incarnation  into 
I  sinful  flesh  would  be,  not  a  condescension,  but  a 
fall.  The  Son  of  God  could  not  begin  His  work 
of  redemption  by  an  act  of  sin.  He  could  only 
take  into  conjunction  with  His  holy  person  such 
elements  and  in  such  conditions  as  were  capable 
of  the  conjunction,  and  could  serve  for  the 
manifestation  of  a  holy  will.  Christ  never  had 
our  primary  difficulty  of  overcoming  a  hereditary 
disposition  to  go  wrong.  He  was  as  unimpeded 
in  the  formation  of  His  moral  character  as 
was  the  first  Adam,  who  was  created  with  all 
his  faculties  perfect,  and  with  every  impulse 
wholesome. 

To  this  pure  and  beautiful  new  beginning  of 
the    human    race    in    Christ    the    appropriate 
avenue  was  His  conception  by  a  Virgin  Mother 
I  do  not  know  whether  the  strife  which  is  still 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL   CHARACTER.  5S 


vehemently  surging  among  the  German  Tro- 
testants  upon  this  subject  has  aroused  much 
attention  in  America.  It  cannot,  at  any  rate, 
cause  any  division  of  opinion  within  our  own 
CathoHc  communion,  which  day  by  day  repeats 
its  affirmation  that  Christ  was  conceived  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  If 
the  narratives  at  the  beginning  of  St.  Matthew 
and  St.  Luke  are  legends  which  sprang  up  some- 
where in  the  early  Church  after  the  days  of  the 
Apostles,  we  cannot  but  marvel  at  the  incom- 
parable moderation  and  the  delicacy,  beyond 
that  of  the  highest  of  poets,  which  existed  among 
those  first  Christians,  to  invent,  and  to  leave  so 
chastely  unadorned,  the  story  of  the  Manger, 
and  the  Shepherds,  and  the  Wise  Men,  and  the 
Presentation,  and  the  Finding  in  the  Temple. 
It  is  a  strange  kind  of  historical  or  literary 
criticism  which  finds  it  easier  to  suppose  that 
these  narratives  are  the  creation  of  fancy  than 
the  recollections  respectively  of  St.  Joseph  and 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary.  Signs  are  not  want- 
ing that  already  a  more  critical  spirit  than  that 
which  is  so  often  vaunted  is  bringing  men  round, 


56  THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF 


even  in  Germany,  to  a  more  reasonable  view. 
Professor  Loofs  of  Halle,  the  most  respected  of 
the  disciples  of  Professor  Harnack,  is  able,  so 
I  am  told,  to  set  himself  so  far  free  from  his 
master's  influence  as  to  say  that,  in  a  life  where 
miracles  cannot  be  denied,  one  miracle  more  or 
less  makes  little  difficulty,  and  that  therefore  the 
virgin  Conception  may  be  admitted.^  But  such 
grounds  for  the  admission — so  welcome  in  itself 
— are  most  inadequate.  They  might,  perhaps, 
have  sufficed  to  secure  acquiescence  for  that 
which  is  really  a  legend,  the  legend  of  the 
virgin  Birth,  as  distinguished  from  the  virgin 
Conception,  if  it  had  found  its  way  into  the 
sacred  text  ;  but  it  has  not.  "From  a  very  early 
period,  and  with  a  strange  unanimity.  Church 
teachers  inculcated  the  belief  that,  not  only  was 
the  Lord  conceived  without  earthly  fatherhood, 
but  that  at  birth  He  came  to  the  light  by  a 
process  unknown  to  ordinaiy  natur^  which  they 
supposed  to  be  necessary  to  the  preservation  of 


^  In  his  three  Sermons  on  the  Aposlolicitm,  preached  before 
the  University  of  Halle,  Professor  Loofs  treats  the  matter  as 
not  of  "  fundamental "  importance  (p.  21,  footnote). 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL   CHARACTER.  57 


His  Mother's  virgin  estate.  It  is  a  good  instance 
of  the  difference  between  the  miracles  of 
Scripture  and  the  clumsy  fancies  of  men.  If 
Scripture  had  taught  us  that  our  Lord  came 
forth  from  His  mother's  womb  in  the  same 
manner  as  He  came  into  the  Upper  Chamber 
where  the  doors  were  shut,  we  should,  I  dare 
say,  have  bowed  to  authority  ;  but  we  should 
have  felt  our  faith  to  be  tried  by  the  imposition 
of  a  miracle  which  would  be  not  only  gratuitous 
and  unimpressive,  but  also  actually  misleading, 
because  it  would  have  obscured  the  difference 
between  the  Lord's  natural  body  and  His 
resurrection  body.  The  miracle  of  His  con- 
ception,  on  the  other  hand,  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  be  a  miracle  at  all,  so  completely  does  it 
seem  to  be  demanded — though  assuredly  it  was 
not  invented  afterwards  to  meet  the  demand — 
by  the  fact  that  His  birth  was  not,  like  ours,  the 
first  inception  of  a  new  personality,  but  the 
advent  of  an  already  existent  and  Divine 
person  upon  a  new  mode  of  being. 
"  The  Incarnate  Lord  begins,  then,  without 
our   disadvantage  of  original  sin.     But  to  start 


58  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

in  human  life  with  untainted  springs  of  desire 
and  thought,  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  have 
attained  the  perfection  of  moral  character. 
Perfection  is  not,  in  our  changeful  existence, 
a  stationary  thing.  The  human  being  who 
begins  with  the  perfection  of  a  babe,  must  go  on 
to  the  more  conscious  and  voluntary  perfection 
of  the  grown  man ;  and  this  can  only  be 
attained,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  through  tempta- 
tions fully  felt  and  persistently  overcome.  Christ,  A 
therefore,  became  the  subject  of  temptation.  ^^""^ 
We  might,  perhaps,  never  have  imagined  that 
Christ  was  tempted,  if  He  had  not  Himself 
disclosed  the  fact  to  His  disciples.  Probably 
in  their  reverent  admiration  for  His  even, 
unwavering  career  of  goodness,  they  would  not 
have  allowed  themselves  to  suppose  that  it  ever 
cost  Him  an  effort  to  be  good.  They  would 
have  thought  that  it  came  to  Him — as  we  have 
seen  that,  in  part,  it  did — by  nature,  and  would 
have  shrunk  from  thinking  of  Him  as  under- 
going any  hard  hand-to-hand  conflict  with  the 
solicitations  of  evil.  Few  parts  of  the  Gospel 
narrative   are  so    little    likely  to   be   the  result 


OUR   LORD'S  MORAL    CHARACTER.  59 

of  the  legend-making  process  as  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  Temptation  of  our  Saviour  after  His 
Baptism.  It  wears,  indeed,  a  symbolic  form, 
like  that  of  the  temptation  of  our  first  parents. 
In  no  other  form  could  we  rightly  apprehend 
the  temptations  which  presented  themselves  to 
the  mind  of  God  made  man.  But  that  the 
disciples  should  themselves  have  invented  such 
a  beginning  for  their  Master's  public  ministry 
is  as  impossible  as  that  they  should  have 
invented  its  closing  with  the  Agony  in  the 
Garden  and  the  cry  of  dereliction  on  the 
Cross.  It  must  have  been  to  them  a  moment 
of  shock  and  of  terror  when  our  Lord  first 
confided  to  them  what  He  had  passed  through. 
/^  But  when  once  told  that  our  Lord  was 
tempted,  it  is  not  difficult  for  us  to  suppose 
that  He  was  often,  that  He  was  constantly 
tempted.  Such  a  special  crisis,  perhaps,  never 
occurred  again,  but  it  would  be  unnatural  to 
suppose  that  no  temptations  had  ever  occurred 
to  Him  before,  in  boyhood  and  in  youth  ;  and 
we  are  permitted  to  know  of  occasions  when  they 
distinctly  occurred  to  Him  afterwards.     Indeed, 


6o  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 


the  Evangelist  significantly  says,  at  the  close  of 
his  account  of  the  great  Temptation,  that  "  the 
devil  departed  from  Him  "  only  "  for  a  season."  ^ 
Sometimes  temptations  came  to  Him  through 
the  voice  of  friends.  I  do  not  know  what  else 
can  account  for  the  sudden  severity  of  tone 
with  which  He  repels  His  Mother's  appeal 
the  instant  before  working  His  first  miracle.^ 
Nothing  else  accounts  for  the  terrific  severity 
with  which  He  displayed  the  character  of  St. 
Peter's  argument,  when  once  the  Apostle  under- 
took to  cheer — as  he  must  have  thought — the 
failing  spirits  of  his  Master,  and  to  stop  Him 
from  taking  so  gloomy  a  view  of  the  situation. 
**  Get  thee  behind  Me,  Satan,"  was  the  reply, 
identifying  the  well-meaning  but  misguided 
friend  with  the  dreadful  agency  which  made  ^ 
use  of  him  ;  and  then  followed  the  confession 
which  showed  how  sharp  the  temptation  to 
our  Saviour  Himself  had  been — "  For  thou  art 
an  offence,  a  cause  of  stumbling,  ui 
He  felt  in  that  hour  what  martyrs  have  felt, 
when    fathers    and    brothers    and    friends    have 

St.  John  ii.  4. 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL    CHARACTER.  6 1 

offered  a  means  of  escape,  and  urged,  "  Spare 
thy  youth,"  or  "  Spare  thy  old  age,"  and  was 
not  too  proud — when  it  was  wholesome  for 
His  disciple  to  be  warned — to  sh^ii^liow  acutely 
the  suggestion  had  beenj^t^/  At  other  times, 
and,  we  may  well  believe,  less  dangerously, 
the  temptation  came  through  the  lips  of  enemies, 
repeating,  as  they  did  during  the  Crucifixion, 
the  very  words  which  expressed  once  more 
His  temptation  in  the  wilderness,  "If  Thou  be 
the  Son  of  God,  if  Thou  be  the  Christ,  save 
Thyself."  And  that  which  found  distinct 
utterance  at  such  moments  must  have  been 
discerned  by  our  Lord's  keen  perceptions 
on  a  thousand  unrecorded  occasions  as  well. 
As  He  looks  back  upon  the  years  of  His 
ministry  from  the  Upper  Chamber  the  night 
before  His  death,  He  says  to  the  faithful  eleven, 
"Ye  are  they  which  have  continued  with  Me 
in  My  temptations,"  ^  as  if  these  had  been  the 
main  feature  of  His  life  during  the  three  years 
and  a  half  of  the  Apostles'  association  with  Him. 
The   great   unknown    interpreter   of  the   life 

*  St.  Luke  xxii.  28. 


62  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

of  Christ,  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  to  whom  it  was  given,  more  than  to 
any  other  of  the  inspired  writers,  to  draw  out 
for  us  the  significance  of  the  human  nature  of 
our  Lord,  generalises  the  typical  temptation 
after  our  Lord's  Baptism  by  saying  that  He 
"was  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are, 
without  sin."  ^  It  is  a  bold  generalisation,  but 
not  unwarranted — indeed,  St.  Luke  himself 
made  or  accepted  it,  when,  at  the  close  of  his 
account  of  the  forty  days  in  the  wilderness, 
he  says  that  the  devil  only  left  our  Lord, 
"when  he  had  brought  to  a  conclusion  all 
temptation/^  However  temptations  may  be 
"sorteS'and  classified,  they  are  all  represented 
there, — temptations  of  the  component  parts  of 
man,  body,  soul,  and  spirit  ;  temptations 
through  the  main  foes  with  which  we  are 
confronted,  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil ; 
temptations  to  sin  against  God,  and  self,  and 
the  world,  through  omission  of  duty,  and 
through   doing,   in   thought,    word,    and    deed, 

>  Heb.  iv.  15. 

-   St.  Luke  iv.  13:  avvreX^cras  iravra  irdpaafiov. 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL    CHARACTER.  6\ 


what  should  not  be  done.  "  In  all  points,"  He 
was  tempted.  He  had  all  our  faculties,  and 
all  our  attractions  and  repulsions.  Sweet  was 
sweet  to  Him,  and  bitter  was  bitter.  Labour 
and  repose  were  to  Him  what  they  are  to  us. 
Nay,  His  capacities  for  enjoyment  and  for  pain, 
in  mind  and  in  body,  were  immeasurably 
beyond  ours ;  and,  in  all  this  vast  range,  there 
was  no  spot  where  temptation  did  not  assail 
Him,  with  a  subtlety,  a  pertinacity,  an  intensity, 
of  which  we  have  little  notion.  Some  measure 
of  the  strength  of  His  temptation  in  the  wilder- 
ness may  be  gathered  from  the  words  of  St. 
Matthew  and  St.  Luke,  when  they  tell  us  that, 
''when  He  had  fasted  forty  days  and  forty 
nights,  He  was  afterward  an  hungred  ; "  "■  when 
the  days  were  accomplished.  He  hungered."  ^ 
Read  these  words  in  conjunction  with  St. 
Mark's  brief  statement  that  He  was  '*  forty 
days  tempted  of  the  devil,"  ^  and  the  meaning 
of  that  "  afterwards "  will  appear.  It  would 
seem  that  under  the  stress  of  the  temptation 
He   had  no  leisure  during  those  forty  days  to 

'  St.  Malt.  iv.  2  ;  St.  Luke  iv.  2.  =  g^   ;^j^^|^  j    j.^ 


64  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

pay  attention  to  His  bodily  wants— even  as, 
upon  the  Cross,  it  was  only  after  the  horror 
of  His  great  darkness  began  to  pass  away 
that  He  gave  utterance  to  His  consciousness  of 
thirst.  Truly  temptation  was  a  fearful  reality 
to  our  Blessed  Saviour. 

The  language  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
carries  us  a  step  further,  when  it  says  that  not 
only  was  He  in  all  points  tempted,  but  was 
tempted  "  like  as  we  are  {kiS'  oiuloloti^to)." 
Temptation  did  not  come  to  Him  in  a  fashion 
that  made  it  different  from  what  we  know  ; 
it  was  the  samej  We  are  not  indeed  com- 
pelled to  suppose  that  temptations  presented 
themselves  to  Him  in  the  same  forms  in 
which  they  come  to  us.  If  they  had  done 
so,  they  would,  in  many  cases,  have  lost  all 
their  tempting  power.  Sensuality  or  worldli- 
ness  in  the  coarse  forms  in  which  they  make 
havoc  of  the  souls  of  men  could  never  have 
been  anything  but  an  object  of  hatred  and 
disgust  to  His  pure  soul.  It  was  necessary  that 
temptation  should  come  to  Him  in  the  most 
refined  and  insidious  form  if  there  was  to  be  the 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL    CHARACTER.  6$ 


least  ground  for  supposing  that  it  might  succeed. 
But  when    it    came    in  an  appropriate    form,  it 
came    to    Him   as   it   comes  to  us.     It  needed 
the  exercise  of  vigilance  and  a  sensitive  con- 
science to  discern  its  character ;  it  cost  effort, 
strength    of  will,  pain    and   hardship  to  resist. 
And  the  fact  that  He  was  "  without  sin,"  while 
it    freed     Him,    doubtless,    from    many    of  our 
worst  temptations,  only  added  to  the  acuteness 
of  others.     He  never   knew   by  experience   of 
His    own,    what  we   know  too   well,  the   force 
with  which    temptation    comes   to  us  again   on 
the  score  of  having  been  yielded  to  before,  nor 
the    difficulty   of  going    back    from    a  position 
once   wrongly   taken   up.      But    on    the   other 
hand,  our  dulled  and  hardened  consciences  can 
ill  imagine  the  poignancy  of  the  torture  which 
it    must   have    been    to    one    who    was    wholly 
right    and  good,  to    be  besieged  and  assaulted 
with  every  manner  of  solicitation  to  fall  away 
from  His  lofty  standard  of  duty.     We  can  see 
that,  being  what   He  was,  it  was  inconceivable 
that  He  should    really  fall  ;  but  none  the  less 
— perhaps    we    should  ,say,    all    the    more — He 

F 


66  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

was  permitted  to  experience  to  the  full  all  the 
hardship  of  doing  right. 

^This  brings  us  to  the  question,  which  is  of 
profound  interest  for  us, — how  "  the  Man  Christ 
Jesus  "  held  His  ground,  and  not  only  remained 
sinless  amidst  temptation,  but  also  formed  by 
the  conflict  that  holiness  of  human  character 
which  makes  Him  the  pattern  for  all  other 
men  to  follow.  Did  He  bear  down  the  temp- 
tation by  summoning  up  the  forces  of  His  own 
Divine  nature, — that  Godhead  which  "cannot 
— be  tempted  of  evil,"  ^ — or  did  He  meet  it  as 
a  creature  may,  by  loyal  dependence  upon  God 
His  Father?  ")!  dare  say  that  many  of  us  in 
childhood  supposed  that  when  our  Lord  replied 
to  the  temptation  to  cast  Himself  from  the 
pinnacle  in  the  Avords,  "  Thou  shalt  not  tempt 
the  Lord  thy  God,"  He  was  rebuking  Satan  for 
his  wickedness  in  tempting  ///;;/,  and  asserting 
His  Divine  superiority  to  the  temptation.  In 
point  of  fact,  the  words  seem  to  indicate  clearly 
the  opposite  thought, — that  He  had  taken  upon 
Himself  the  estate  of  a  subject  and  a  servant, 

'  St.  James  i.  13. 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL   CHARACTER.  6/ 


and  was  bound  to  do  nothing,  and  would  do 
nothing,  that  might  "  tempt  the  Lord."  The 
Lord  was  His  God.  To  cast  Himself  down 
from  the  pinnacle  would  have  been  to  claim 
the  aid  of  His  God  for  an  action  not  dictated 
by  Him  ;  and  so  would  have  provoked  the  Lord 
His  God  to  withdraw  that  aid  upon  which  He 
relied.  In  like  manner,  the  replies  to  the  other 
temptations  set  plainly  before  us  how  entirely 
our  Saviour  had  thrown  Himself  into  the  posi- 
tion of  human  dependence.  "  Man  shall  not 
live  by  bread  alone,"  and  Christ  was  man.  He' 
lived,  as  other  men  may  and  ought  to  live,  by 
"  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of 
God."  He  would  not  pay  an  act  of  homage  to 
the  Tempter,  because  He  was  under  the  law  for 
man,  and  that  law  laid  it  upon  Him  to  worship 
the  Lord  His  God,  and  to  serve  no  other  instead 
of  Him,  or  in  conjunction  with  Him.  This 
language  is  not  like  that  of  one  who  draws 
upon  forces  within  Himself,  whether  human  or 
superhuman,  for  the  conflict  with  temptation. 
It  is  the  language  of  one  who  occupies  a  crea- 
turely  place,  and  trusts  in  the  aid  of  the  Creator. 


68  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 


We  must  see  whether  this  view  is  borne  out  by 
other  indications  given  to  us  in  Holy  Scripture. 
The  rigour  of  the  mediaeval  theology,  which 
is  still  held  binding  by  Roman  divines,  denies 
that  our  Blessed  Lord,  when  He  was  upon 
earth,  was  capable  of  faith.  He  had,  they  say, 
at  all  times  the  Beatific  Vision  ;  and  where 
vision  is,  there  faith  cannot  be.  I  confess  that 
it  seems  to  me  a  shallow  conception  of  faith, 
thus  absolutely  to  contrast  it  with  sight,  and  to 
think  that  it  comes  to  an  end  when  sight  is 
vouchsafed.  Although  St.  Paul  in  one  place 
speaks  of  faith  as  opposed  to  sight,^  in  another 
place  he  speaks  (and  it  is  surely  his  habitual 
view  of  the  matter)  of  faith  as  *'  abiding,"  even 
when  we  shall  know  as  we  were  known.^  It 
is  a  virtue  of  the  soul  which  is  specially  tested 
by  the  absence  of  sight,  as  of  other  forms  of 
demonstration  ;  but  the  virtue  does  not  cease 
when  its  trials  are  over.  But  even  if  this  were 
otherwise,  the  correctness  of  the  mediaeval 
reasoning  might  be  doubted.  The  Bible  does 
not  tell  us,  in  so  many  words,  that  our  Lord  in 

^  2  Cor.  V,  7.  -  I  Cor.  xiii.  13. 


OUR   LORD'S  MORAL    CHARACTER.  69 

His  life  on  earth  enjoyed  the  Beatific  Vision, 
and  we  arc  not  bound,  therefore,  either  to 
affirm  or  to  deny  it.  The  Bible  does  assure  us 
that  He  Hved,  in  the  largest  sense,  a  life  of 
faith.  He  was,  says  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
"faithful  unto  Him  that  made  Him  (what  He 
was)  in  all  His  house,"  ^  even  as  Moses  had 
been.  If  the  predominant  thought  here  is  that 
of  fidelity  in  the  discharge  of  duty,  it  yet  em- 
phasizes a  relationship  from  which  faith,  in  the 
full  acceptation,  cannot  be  excluded.  Jesus  is 
again  described  as  "  the  Captain  and  Perfecter 
of  faith"— not  "of  our  faith,"-  as  the  Old 
Version  wrongly  glosses.  He  first  showed  what 
faith  really  was,  and  set  a  complete  and  faultless 
example  of  it,  the  contemplation  of  which  may 
animate  us  to  endure  trials  which  have  some 
resemblance  to  His  own.  And  when  the  great 
writer,  whose  words  we  have  been  quoting,  would 
furnish  a  text  of  the  Old  Testament  which  should 
fully  express  the  moral  and  spiritual  position 
adopted   by  the   Eternal    Son  on  coming    into 

'  Ileb,  iii.  2. 

-   Heb.  xii.  2,  T^s  TriVrew?  apxvy^^  "^a^  t(\€iu)T1]s. 


70  THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF 

the  world,  the  text  is,  "  And  I  will  put  My  trust 
in  Him."^  He  had  all  the  Old  Testament 
to  choose  from,  and  it  may  seem  strange  that 
he  chose  this  text ;  but  the  force  of  the  passage 
is  unquestionable.  The  attitude  of  the  typical 
prophet,  or  of  the  theocratic  king  (for  it  is  not 
certain  whose  words  they  are  in  the  first  in- 
stance), is  that  of  a  trust  absolutely  fixed  once 
for  all  upon  God  ;  and  such  was  the  attitude 
which  Christ  would  assume.  Renouncing  all 
trust  in  Himself,  or  in  any  creaturely  aid,  or 
in  earthly  modes  of  attaining  to  success,  this 
was  to  be  His  one  motto  through  life,  un- 
swerving reliance  upon  God,  whatever  God  might 
call  upon  Him  to  suffer  or  to  do.  The  fall  of 
man  in  the  beginning  had  come  about  through 
distrust  of  God's  ordering  of  things,  and  the 
assertion  of  human  independence  ;  and  He  who 
came  to  undo  the  fall  would  undo  it  through 
the  opposite  course  unflinchingly  adhered  to, — 
abnegation  of  self,  and  confident  dependence 
^  upon  God. 

Thus,  when  a  young   man  full    of  religious 

^   Heb.  ii.  13,  '£70*  eaoixai  ireiroiOws  eV  avrcp. 


OUR   LORD'S  MORAL    CHARACTER. 


ardour  came  to  our  Lord,  and  asked  Him, 
"  Good  Master,  what  good  thing  shall  I  do  that 
I  may  attain  eternal  life  ? "  our  Lord  replied 
to  him  in  a  manner  which  must  at  first  have 
sounded  strangely  disheartening,  "  Why  callest 
thou  Me  good  ?  there  is  none  good  but  One, 
that  is  God."  ^  It  cannot  mean  that  Christ  is 
refusing  in  one  capacity  an  epithet  which,  in 
another  capacity,  He  would  have  accepted  ;  as 
if  He  had  said  to  the  young  man,  "  You  think 
Me  to  be  a  good  man  :  I  am  not  that ;  I  am 
God,  and  only  by  virtue  of  My  divine  nature 
am  I  to  be  called  good."  Besides  other  insur- 
mountable difficulties  in  such  an  interpretation, 
it  could  have  furnished  no  guidance  to  one 
who  was  earnestly  asking  for  guidance.  The 
inquirer  could  not  have  been  expected  to  hit 
upon  such  an  interpretation  of  the  words.  Nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  assuredly,  did  our  Saviour 
mean  to  say,  "  You  are  mistaken  in  Me  ;  I  am 
not  what  you  think  ]\Ie  :  My  life,  though  pos- 
sibly better  than  that  of  most  men,  is  yet  faulty 
when   examined  as   God  examines  ;   I,  like  the 

1  St.  Mark  X.  i8. 


72  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 


rest  of  us,  am  a  sinner  ;  for  goodness  you  must 
look   away  from   Me."     Not  a   single  word   of 
Christ  elsewhere  would  support  such  a  view  of 
His  meaning  here.     It  is  allowed  on  all  hands 
that  penitence  and  the  consciousness  of  imper- 
fection, which  are  so  characteristic  of  all  the 
saints,  and  of  the  best  most,  are  entirely  absent 
from  the  life  of  Christ.     When  He  says,  "  Why 
callest  thou  Me  good  ?  there  is  none  good  but 
One,  that  is  God,"  He  is  saying  what  may  help 
His  interlocutor  to  attain  that  which  he  desires 
to    attain  ;    and    the    meaning  is   surely  this — 
Christ  is  not  only  our  pattern,  as  I  have  said, 
but  our  example  ;  and  His  methods  of  attaining 
to  moral  perfection  are  our  methods.     He  will 
not  allow  the  rich  young  ruler  to  imagine  that 
His   goodness   proceeds   from    within    Himself, 
and  that  there   is    some   secret   by  which   the 
young  man,  too,  can  be  taught  to  make  himself 
good  with  a  self-made  goodness,  and  worthy  of 
eternal  life.     Such  a  notion  could  only  start  the 
man  again  upon  that  weary  path  of  Pharisaic 
self-righteousness     which     inevitably    ends     in 
failure    and    bitter    disappointment.     "If    you 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL   CHARACTER.  73 


think  Mc  c^ood,"  He  seems  to  say,  "  I  can  assure 
you  that  that  goodness  conies  from  a  source 
that  is  hii^her  than  Myself,  and  that  source  is 
one  from  which  you  also  may  draw.  The  only  / 
way  in  which  human  character  can  be  trained 
for  eternal  life  is  by  humble  constant  waiting, 
hanging,  upon  God." 

In  keeping  with  this  view  of  our  Lord's  life 
as  a  life  of  faith  is  the  fact  that  it  was  a  life  of 
prayer.  The  prayers  were,  no  doubt,  largely 
on  behalf  of  others,  but  not  in  every  instance. 
St.  Mark  records  how,  the  morning  after  His 
first  great  healing  at  Capernaum,  "rising  up 
early  while  it  was  still  long  before  day,  He 
went  out  into  a  solitary  place,  and  there 
prayed,"  ^  until  Simon  and  his  companions 
pursued  Him  to  the  spot ;  and  how,  after  the 
feeding  of  the  Five  Thousand,  when  it  was 
late,  He  dismissed  the  disciples  and  then  the 
multitude,  and  "went  away  into  the  mountain 
to  pray."  -  St.  Luke  records  that  it  was  while 
He  was  praying,  after  His  Baptism,  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  descended  upon  Him  ;'^  he  mentions 

'  St.  Mark  i.  35.         -  St.  Mark  vi.  46.         ^  St.  Luke  iii.  21. 


74  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

it  as  a  feature   of  our  Lord's  first  evangelistic 
circuit  in  Galilee,  that  "He  was  wont  to  retire 
in  the  solitudes  and  pray."  ^     Before  the  setting 
apart   of  the    Twelve,  "  He  went  out  into  the 
mountain,"  says  St.  Luke,  "and  continued  the 
whole  night   in    prayer  to   God."  ^      '*  It    came 
to   pass,"    says   the    same    Evangelist,  relating 
the  confession  at  C?esarea  Philippi,  "that    His 
disciples    were    with    Him," — or,   according   to 
another     reading,    "  His     disciples     met    with 
Him  " — "  as    He   was    praying    by    Himself."  ^ 
His    Transfiguration    took    place,    according  to 
St.  Luke,  when,  "taking  with   Him  Peter  and 
John  and  James,  He  went  up  into  the  mountain 
to  pray."*     It  was,  says  St.  Luke,  "when  He 
was  in  a  certain  place  praying,  that,  when  He 
ceased,    one   of   His  disciples   said    unto    Him, 
Lord,  teach  us  to  pray."  ^     All  three  Synoptists 
record    the    last    tremendous    prayer    in    Geth- 
semane.      St.    Luke    records    His    marvellous 
intercession  for  those  who  crucified^Hjm^J^ven 
St.  John,  whom  many  critics  accuse  of  making 

1  St.  Luke  V.  i6.    "-   St.  Luke  vi.  12.    '  St.  Luke  ix.  iS. 
■*  St.  Luke  ix.  28.    ^  St.  Luke  xi.  i. 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL   CHARACTER.  75 


our  Lord's  life  on  earth  purely  Divine,  twice 
gives  the  words  of  His  address  to  the  Father. 
The  first,  though  not  a  prayer,  is  a  direct 
thanksgiving  that  a  previous  prayer  had  been 
accepted, — "Father,  I  thank  thee  that  Thou 
didst  hear  Me,"  and  implies  a  constant  habit 
of  prayer, — "  I  knew  that  Thou  hearest  Me 
always;"^  the  second  is  His  great  intercession 
for  the  disciples  and  for  their  converts.'-^  The 
same  Evangelist  represents  Him  as  promising 
to  continue  His  prayers  even  after  His  departure 
from  the  earth,'"^  and,  in  His  first  Epistle,  speaks 
of  Him  as  our  "  Advocate  with  the  Father."  ^ 
St.  Matthews  though  he  speaks  of  no  prayer 
of  Christ's  except  that  in  the  Garden  of  Geth- 
semane,  records  that  most  significant  saying, 
''  Thinkest  thou  that  I  cannot  beseech  My 
Father,  and  He  shall  this  instant  send  Me 
more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels  ? "  -'  and 
the  words  in  which,  addressing  God  first  as 
"  Father,"  then  as  "  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth," 
our  Saviour  gives  thanks  for  the  failure  of  His 

'   St.  John  xi.  41,  42.        -  St.  John  xvii.        '  St.  John  xiv.  16. 
*    I  John  ii.  I.  ^  St.  Matt.  xxvi.  53. 


76  THE  DEVELOPMENT   OF 

work  in  one  direction,  and  the  success  given  to 
it  in  another  which  seemed  less  promising, — 
"  I  thank  Thee  that  Thou  didst  hide  these 
things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  didst 
reveal  them  unto  babes  ;  "  submitting  Himself 
by  a  sublime  act  of  faith  to  the  plan  so  de- 
clared :  "  Even  so,  Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good 
in  Thy  sight."  ^  The  thanksgiving  is  followed 
by  the  two  utterances,  in  such  strange  juxta- 
position,— that  all  things  had  been  delivered 
to  Him  by  the  Father,  and  that  the  condition 
of  obtaining  the  rest  which  He  offered  was  to 
learn  of  Him  meekness  and  lowliness  of  heart. 

The  juxtaposition,  I  say,  of  these  two  utter- 
ances seems  strange  ;  and  yet  it  is  the  natural 
outcome  of  Christ's  whole  life.  He  wins  by 
submission.  He  is  exalted  through  obedience. 
It  is  by  taking  to  the  uttermost  the  "  form  of 
a  servant"  that  He  attains  "the  name  which 
is  above  every  name."  It  is  indeed  significant 
that  the  one  virtue  in  His  own  character  to 
which  our  Incarnate  Lord  directs  attention  is 
this,  of  ''  meekness  and  lowliness  of  heart."     He 

^  St.  Matt.  xi.  25  foil. 


OUR    LORD'S  MORAL   CHARACTER.  JJ 

might  with  good  reason  have  said,  *'  Learn  of 
Me,  for  I  am  pure,  am  just,  am  brave,  am 
truthful  ; "  but  these  virtues,  though  as  fully 
developed  in  Him  as  any,  were  not  the  virtues 
which  put  His  life  into  the  most  marked  con- 
trast, not  only  with  those  of  other  men,  but 
also  with  what  might  have  been  expected  of 
Him.  Self-will,  the  choosing  for  ourselves,  is 
the  prevailing  aspect  of  our  conduct  in  the 
world  ;  "  we  have  turned  every  one  to  his  own 
way."  With  Him,  the  prevailing  aspect  is  that 
of  a  cheerful  and  glad  obedience  :  "  I  seek 
not  Mine  own  will,  but  the  will  of  Him  that 
sent  Me."  ^ 

How  difficult  that  will  was  to  do,  every  one 
has  endeavoured  to  discern  who  has  thought 
at  all  of  the  Cross  of  Christ.  His  devotion 
to  the  will  of  God  was  tested  by  every  form 
of  suffering  which  the  craft  and  malice  of  the 
devil  or  man  could  bring  to  bear  upon  it, — 
nay,  it  may  be  said  that  God  Himself  tried 
His  Incarnate  Son  to  the  utmost.  Little 
deserving  of  suffering  though  He  was,  He  was 

*  St.  John  v>  30. 


7^  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

early  put  into  that  painful  school,  and  He 
continued  in  it  to  the  end.  And  it  was 
indeed  to  Him  a  school,  in  which  lesson  suc- 
ceeded to  lesson  in  due  order  and  gradation. 
Had  He  died  by  the  sword  of  Herod  at 
Bethlehem,  we  dare  not  say  that  the  sacrifice 
would  have  been  insufficient  for  the  salvation 
of  the  world  ;  but  we  may  safely  affirm  that 
the  little  human  Babe  could  not  have  accom- 
plished the  work  of  redemption  in  the  same 
intelligent  and  active  way  as  He  did  when  He 
was  grown  up.  It  was  a  gradual  process  by 
which  He  was  practised  for  the  final  contest. 
"He  wakeneth  morning  by  morning" — so  says 
Christ  beforehand,  by  the  prophet, — "  He 
wakeneth  Mine  ear  to  hear  as  the  learned."  ^ 
It  is,  as  any  Hebrew  reader  knows,  the 
technical  language  of  the  scholar  and  the 
master.  Even  as  He  bade  us  to  take  up  our 
cross  daily  and  follow  Him,  so  He  Himself 
received  daily  the  instruction  in  suffering 
which  was  appropriate  for  the  day.  Had  the 
last  trials   come  to    Him   near   the   beginning, 

1  Isa.  1.  4. 


OUR  LORD'S  MORAL   CHARACTER.  /Q 

He    might    not  have    been    able  to  bear  them, 
but    miL^ht    have    died    prematurely   in  making 
the    effort.     On    Ilim,    as    on    us,  God  laid    no 
greater   burden    than    He    was    able    to    bear. 
And  so,  at  last,  He  "  who,  though  He  was  the 
Son,  yet  learned  obedience  by  the  things  which 
He  suffered,"  became   "perfect  through   suffer- 
ings "  ^   with  a  perfection  which    could    not    be 
improved    by   any    prolongation.      The    Cross, 
following  upon  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  was 
the  final  lesson  by  which  the  human  character 
of    our    Lord    was    brought    to    its    absolute 
and  unsurpassable    perfection.     Obedience,  the 
supreme  virtue  of  the  creature,  could  be  carried 
no  higher ;    and  He  who  was  thus  made  per- 
fect  by  obeying    God,  became   "the    cause    of 
eternal  salvation  to  all  those  who  in  turn  obey 
Himr± 

All  the  phenomena  of  Christ's  inward  ex- 
perience during  His  life  on  earth  which  are 
recorded  for  us,  combine  to  suggest  that  His 
moral  growth — as  He  "  increased  in  favour  with 
God,"^  and  with  the  men  of  God — was  of  the 

'  Heb.  ii.  10.  2  Yi^x,  ,..  9.  =>  St.  Luke  ii.  52. 


80  THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF 

same  kind  as  ours  at  its  best,  only  so  im- 
measurably better.  It  is  thus  that  we  are 
invited  to  reckon  upon  the  completeness  of  His 
sympathy  with  us  in  all  our  moral  struggles 
and  the  difficulties  of  maintaining  a  right  ref- 
lation   with   the   will   cS    God.  \    Had    Christ's 


earthly  life  been  that  of  aTTjod,  to  whom  His 
earthly  nature  was  little  more  than  a  veil  and  a 
semblance,  then  it  might  have  been  possible  to 
say  of  Him,  as  the  Psalmists  said  of  God,  "  He 
knoweth  whereof  we  are  made ;  He  remem- 
bereth  that  we  are  but  dust;  He  has  a  Creator's 
tenderness  for  the  sentient  beings  whose  very 
feelings  are  His  own  contrivance  ;  He  tells  our 
flittings,  He  puts  our  tears  into  His  bottle ;  He 
notes  in  His  book  all  our  experiences  with  more 
than  scientific  interest  and  accuracy."  All  this 
might  have  been  said  of  such  a  Christ.  But  the 
language  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  very 
different.  "  He  is  not  laying  hold  of  angels, 
but  He  is  laying  hold  of  the  seed  of  Abraham  ; 
whence  it  was  owing  that  He  should  be  in  all 
points  made  like  unto  His  brethren,  that  He 
might   become   a    merciful  High  Priest  and    a 


OUR   LORD'S  MORAL    CHARACTER.  8r 

faithful  in  the  things  pertaining  to  God,  to 
make  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  people  ; 
for  inasmuch  as  He  hath  suffered  "  ^ — it  is  an 
abiding  fact  of  experience — "  being  tempted, 
He  is  able  to  succour"  at  each  moment  of 
danger,  "  them  that  arc  tempted."  -  "  Having, 
therefore,  a  great  High  Priest  that  hath  passed 
through  the  heavens,  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God, 
let  us  hold  fast  our  profession ;  for  we  have 
not  an  High  Priest  that  cannot  sympathize 
with  our  weaknesses"  as  they  arise,  "but  one 
that  hath  been  tempted  in  all  points  like  as 
we  are,  without  sin.  Let  us  therefore  come 
with  boldness  to  the  throne  of  grace,  in  order 
that  we  may  receive  mercy  "  for  the  past,  "  and 
may  find  grace  for  timely  succour"^  in  the 
troubles  of  the  present, 
^'^i^nd  while  these  observations  regarding  our 
Lord's  moral  experiences  upon  earth  lead  us  to 
reliance  upon  His  everlasting  sympathy,  they 
may  also  open  up  to  us  in  part  how  His  life, 
consummated  and  gathered  up  in  the  supreme 
self-sacrifice  of  His  death,  was  a  not  unnatural 

^  TTiiTovBiv.         -  Heb.  ii.  i6  foil.         ^  Hcb.  iv.  14  foil. 

G 


82  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

reparation  for  human  sins.  It  is  quite  possible 
to  believe  that  a  reparation  might  have  been 
effected  out  of  the  fertility  of  God's  resources 
by  some  transaction  in  which  human  nature 
had  no  part.  Such  was  not  God's  way.  The 
race  itself  was  to  make  due  satisfaction  for  its 
faults.  Disobedience  to  the  will  of  God,  and 
to  the  law  of  man's  being,  was  the  sin  of 
Adam  and  of  all  His  children.  A  co-extensive 
obedience  was  the  rectification  of  the  sin.  He 
who  offered  that  rectifying  obedience  was  able 
to  do  so  because,  being  at  one  and  the  same  time 
infinitely  more  than  man,  and  also  as  truly  man 
as  if  He  were  nothing  else  but  man.  He  was 
able  to  represent  man  at  large,  and  men  in 
particular,  to  perfection,  and  represented  them 
not  only  in  the  obedience  which  would  at  all 
times  have  been  due  from  the  creature  to  the 
Creator,  but  also  in  that  penitential  obedience 
which  had  been  made  necessary  by  the  sins  of 
men.  He  heads  the  contrite  return  of  con- 
science-stricken humanity  to  God,  submitting 
itself  willingly  to  any  suffering  by  which 
God  may  be  pleased  to  test  its  sincerity  and 


OUR   LORD'S  MORAL    CHARACTER.  S3 

persistence.  And  thus,  "  as  through  the  dis- 
obedience of  the  one  man,  the  many  were 
constituted  sinners,  so  also  through  the  obedi- 
ence of  the  One  the  many  shall  be  constituted 
righteous ; "  ^  and  "  as  by  man  came  death, 
by  man  came  also  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead."  - 

'  Rom.  V.  19.  "■  I  Cor.  xv.  21. 


LECTURE   III. 

OUR  lord's  power  upon  earth. 

From  the  consideration  of  the  development  of 
our  Lord's  moral  character  as  a  Man,  we  pass  to 
the  subject  of  the  power  which  He  displayed 
during  His  earthly  life. 

It  is  often  assumed,  and  not  unnaturally,  both 
by  ancient  and  by  modern  writers,  that  in  His 
miracles  our  Saviour  was  exercising  His  Divine 
power,  and  in  His  sufferings  the  weakness  of  the 
creaturely  nature  which  He  had  vouchsafed  to 
assume.  He  was  thus  alternately  acting  in  two 
capacities,  if  I  may  use  such  an  expression.  He 
interrupted  from  time  to  time  the  exhibition  of 
His  Divine  energy,  in  order  to  give  His  humanity 
its  turn  ;  or  He  interrupted  the  normal  homeli- 
ness of  a  human  life  by  wondrous  vindications 


OUR   LORD'S  rOlVER    UPON  EARTH.         85 

of  His  Godhead.  It  will  be  our  duty  to  -see 
whether  the  Holy  Scripture  bears  out  this 
distribution  of  our  Saviour's  actions. 

Undoubtedly,  our  Lord's  miracles  are  treated 
as  manifestations  of  His  being  more  than  what 
other  men  are.  The  first  time  of  His  performing 
a  miracle  brings  this  clearly  before  us.  "  Thus 
did  Jesus,"  says  St.  John,  "make  a  beginning  of 
His  signs  ^  in  Cana  of  Galilee,  and  manifested 
His  glory,  and  His  disciples  believed  in  Him."^ 
The  words  appear  to  be  intended  to  refer  us  back 
to  that  earlier  passage  where  the  Evangelist  had 
said,  in  regard  to  his  whole  experience  of  fellow- 
ship with  Christ  on  earth,  "  The  Word  was 
made  flesh,  and  tabernacled  among  us,  and  we 
beheld  His  glory."  ^  It  is  as  if  St.  John  said,  ''  I 
spoke  before  of  our  having  lived  in  the  con- 
templation of  the  glory  of  Christ ;  and  this  was 
the  first  occasion  on  which  we  saw  it,  and 
learned  to  believe  in  Him  in  a  way  in  which 
w^e  had  not  done  so  before,  although  we  were 
disciples  already.       That    glory    was    His    own 

'   TauTTjv  iiToirjaev  apxv^  '''^'^  (Tr]jj.(iuu.  -   St.  John  ii.  II, 

■*  Si.  John  i.  14. 


86  OUR   LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 


glory.  It  was  not  a  glory  which  lighted  upon 
Him  at  times  from  without.  The  glory  was 
there  before,  but  it  had  not  been  manifested  to 
us.  The  mighty  work  which  He  did  at  Cana 
brought  it  within  our  observation,  gave  it  a 
visible  expression,  forced  it  upon  our  eyes. 
The  making  of  the  water  wine  showed  us  what 
was  in  Him.  It  burst  upon  us  as  a  revelation 
of  what  lay  beneath  that  quiet  and  simple 
exterior.     He  manifested  His  glory." 

But  it  will  be  noticed  that  St.  John  does  not 
say,  *'  He  manifested  His  Divine  nature,"  or 
the  like.  The  glory  which  Christ  then  displayed 
as  He  had  never  displayed  it  before,  was  not 
merely  the  possession  of  marvellous  powers  of 
His  own.  There  was  about  that  first  miracle,  as 
well  as  in  the  whole  life  which  it  illustrated,  a 
more  subtle  and  remarkable  character  than  that 
of  mere  power,  however  great.  It  revealed  a 
relationship.  "We  beheld  His  glory,"  says  the 
Evangelist,  in  the  earlier  passage  to  which  I  have 
referred,  and  adds— not,  as  in  our  Old  Version, 
"the  glory  as  of  the  Only-begotten  of  the 
Father  " — but,  "  glory  as  of  an  only-begotten 


OUR   LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH.         8/ 

come  to  represent  a  Father."  ^  While  the  glory 
was  indeed  our  Saviour's  own,  which  He  could 
not  fail  to  bear  about  with  Him,  inseparable 
from  His  person,  whether  perceived  by  men  or 
not,  it  was  a  glory  which  carried  the  thoughts 
of  a  spiritual  observer  back  to  another  than  the 
Saviour  Himself.  The  more  it  was  exhibited, 
the  more  the  disciples  felt  that  it  told  them  of 
an  unique  connexion  between  their  Master  and 
God.  That  was  the  special  feature  which  struck 
them  in  Christ's  career — alike  in  its  mighty  deeds 
and  in  its  ordinary  tenor.  It  did  not  exactly 
strike  them  that  He  was  Himself  possessed 
of  the  Divine  attributes,  for  this  they  did  not 
recognise  at  first,  and  only  came  to  believe  it 
distinctly  after  His  resurrection,  but  that  the 
Father  was  manifested  through  Him  in  a  sense 
in  which  no  one  else  could  manifest  Him.  They 
saw  in  Him  *' an  only  begotten  from  a  Father." 

That  which  the  Evangelist  propounds  in  this 
pregnant  statement  of  the  impression  left  upon 
him  and  his  fellow-disciples  by  the  life  of  our 
Lord,  is  brought  out  again   and  again    by  our 

^   Ao|ai/  is  \xovo'^^vovs  Trapa  iraTpos. 


SS         OUR  LORD'S  FOWER    UPON  EARTH. 


Lord  Himself  when  speaking  of  His  own  actions. 
Although  He  does  not  treat  His  miracles  as  the 
highest  of  His  credentials,  but  lays  stress  rather 
upon  the  convincing  force  of  His  teaching,  yet 
He  appeals  often  to  the  witness  of  His  works  ; 
and  it  is  always  to  establish  the  same  truth — 
not  His  personal  Godhead,  although  He  leaves 
us  in  no  doubt  about  His  personal  Godhead — 
but,  more  than  that,  it  is  to  establish  His  unique 
relationship  to  God,  to  the  Father.  He  says  to 
Philip :  "  Believest  thou  that  I  am  in  the  Father 
and  the  Father  in  Me  ?  The  words  that  I  speak 
unto  you,  I  speak  not  from  Myself;  but  the 
Father,  abiding  in  Me,  doeth  His  works. 
Believe  Me  that  I  am  in  the  Father,  and  the 
Father  in  Me  ;  but  if  not,  because  of  the  works 
themselves  believe."  ^  To  the  Jews  who  were 
ready  to  stone  Him,  He  says,  "  Many  works  did 
I  show  you — beautiful  works — from  the  Father. 
.  .  .  If  I  do  not  the  works  of  My  Father, 
believe  Me  not ;  but  if  I  do,  even  if  ye  believe 
not  Me,  believe  the  works :  that  ye  may  know 
and  go  on  knowing  that  the  Father  is  in  Me, 

'  St.  John  xiv.  lo  foil. 


OUR  LORD'S  rOWER    UPON  EARTH.         89 

and  I  in  the  Father."  ^  It  is  always  the  same, 
''  If  I  had  not  done  among  them  the  works  that 
none  other  did,  they  had  not  had  sin,  but  now 
they  have  both  seen  and  hated  both  ]\Ie  and  ]\Iy 
Father."  -  "  The  witness-  that  I  have  is  greater 
than  John  ;  for  the  works  which  the  Father  hath 
given  Me  that  I  should  accomplish  them,  the 
very  works  that  I  do,  bear  witness  concerning 
Me  that  the  Father  hath  sent  Me."  ^  "  The  works 
which  I  do  in  the  name  of  My  Father,  these 
bear  witness  concerning  Me."  ^  It  is  "the  works 
of  God  "  which  are  to  be  "  manifested  "  in  the 
man  who  was  born  blind.^  The  miracles  are 
never  appealed  to  in  Scripture,  unless  I  am 
greatly  mistaken,  as  a  proof  of  Christ's  Divinity 
— unless,  perhaps,  you  except  St.  Paul's  refer- 
ence to  the  great  miracle  of  the  Resurrection  ;  ^ 
they  are  appealed  to  as  a  proof  of  that  which  is 
at  once  less  and  more  than  His  Divinity — that 
is,  of  Christ's  profound  and  unvarying  corre- 
spondence with  the  Father.     It  was  the  one  thing 

'  St.  John  X.  32,  37  foil.  -  St.  John  xv.  24. 

'  St.  John  V.  36.  "  St.  John  x.  25. 

*  St.  John  ix.  3.  '^  Rom.  i.  4. 


90  OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 


which  Christ  would  not  suffer — to  allow  men  to 
suppose  that  His  miracles  had  no  source  beyond 
Him.self.  "  I  am  come  in  the  name  of  My 
Father,  and  ye  receive  Me  not ;  if  another  shall 
come  in  his  own  name,  him  ye  will  receive."  ^ 
He  did  not  say,  "  If  I  had  come  in  My  own 
name,"  because  the  thing  was  so  inconceivable  ; 
but  it  is  nevertheless  true,  that  our  Lord's  claims 
would  have  met  with  less  opposition  amongst  the 
Jews  if  He  had  said  nothing  about  His  Father, 
and  had  allowed  them  to  see  in  His  miracles 
only  a  proof  of  His  own  personal  greatness. 

But  we  may  go  further,  and  say  that  this  rule 
applies  not  only  to  what  we  call  the  miraculous 
acts  of  Christ,  but  to  His  whole  incarnate  life. 
Many  of  the  sentences  which  I  have  already 
quoted  refer  not  only  to  miraculous  acts,  but 
to  other  works  as  well.  Our  Lord  does  not 
single  out  a  particular  class  of  His  actions  as 
proving  His  intimate  union  with  the  Father. 
He  gives  us  to  understand  that  every  movement 
which  He  makes  in  life  is  the  outcome  of  that 
union,  and  that  there  is  no  movement  in  the 

1  St.  John  V.  43. 


OUR   LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH.  QI 

Father's  life  which  His  own  does  not  faith- 
fully retlect,  in  historic  succession,  upon  earth. 
"  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  it  is  impossible 
for  the  Son  to  do  of  Himself  anything  at  all, 
unless  he  behold  the  Father  doing  aught  ;  for 
whatsoever  He  doeth,  these  things  also  the  Son 
doeth  in  like  manner.  For  the  Father  loveth 
the  Son,  and  showeth  Him  all  things  which  He 
Himself  doeth  ;  and  greater  works  than  these 
will  He  show  Him,  that  ye  may  marvel."  ^  "  I 
cannot  do  anything  of  Myself"-  "When  ye 
have  lifted  up  the  Son  of  Man,  then  shall  ye 
know  that  I  am,  and  that  I  do  nothing  of  My- 
self, but  as  My  Father  taught  Me,  I  speak  these 
things."  ^  In  such  words  our  Lord  is  not  saying 
that  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  Him  to 
perform  His  miracles  without  the  Father.  He 
is  teaching  men  that  His  most  ordinary  actions 
correspond  with  the  will  of  His  Father.  The 
Incarnation  has  made  no  breach  in  that  funda- 
mental law  of  the  being  of  God,  that  the  Father 
and  the  Son  do  not  and  cannot  act  irrespective 
of  each  other.     Although  the  conditions  of  the 

1  St.  John  V.  19  foil.       2  5t^  John  v.  30.       '  St.  John  viii.  28. 


92  OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

Son's  life  are  so  altered  by  His  coming  down 
from  Heaven,  yet  it  is  still  the  necessity  of  His 
very  existence — a  necessity  which  is  His  highest 
joy  and  glory — to  be  at  all  times  and  in  every 
circumstance  the  supreme  and  only  perfect  ex- 
ponent of  Another. 

Thus  we  see  that,  while  all  the  actions 
of  Christ — even  the  lowliest — are  treated  as 
revelations  of  the  character  and  mind  of  the 
Father,  and  (naturally)  the  miraculous  actions 
among  others,  none  of  the  actions,  not  even 
the  miraculous,  are  treated  as  showing  that  our 
Lord  Himself  was  using  Divine  omnipotence 
as  inherent  in  His  own  Person.  He  was  using 
Divine  omnipotence,  indeed,  but  Holy  Scripture 
represents  Him  as  using  it  inherent  in  the 
'  person  of  Another  with  whom  He  was  in  the 
most  perfect  and  indissoluble  union.^ 

^  See  Westcott  Hcbreius  p.  66:  "It  is  unscriptural,  though 
the  practice  is  supported  by  strong  patristic  authority,  to  regard 
the  Lord  during  His  historic  life  as  acting  now  by  His  human 
and  now  by  His  Divine  Nature  only.  The  two  natures  were 
inseparably  combined  in  the  unity  of  His  Person.  In  all  things 
He  acts  personally  ;  and,  as  far  as  it  is  revealed  to  us,  His 
greatest  works  during  His  earthly  life  are  wrought  by  the  help 
of  the  Father,  through  the  energy  of  a  humanity  enabled  to  do 
all  things  in  fellowship  with  God  (comp.  St.  John  xi.  41  foil.)." 


OUR   LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH.  93 

The  language  of  our  Saviour  in  this  respect 
is    reiterated    by   His  Apostles.     The  speeches 
of  St.  Peter  in  the  Acts  are  especially  bold  and 
plain  in  their  presentment  of  the  case.     "  Jesus 
the  Nazarene,"  he  cries  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
"  a  Man  displayed  on  the  part  of  God  towards 
you  (av^pa  dirode^eiyfxivov  otto  rou  Qeov  ng  vfxag), 
by  mighty  deeds  and  wonders  and  signs  which 
God  did  through  Him  in  the   midst  of  you."  ^ 
And  lest  any  one  should  suppose  that  this  way 
of  looking  at  the  miracles  of  Christ  belonged 
only  to  the  very  earliest  days  of  our  dispensa- 
tion, when  men   might  still  be   supposed    in    a 
sense    to  know  Christ   only  ''after   the   flesh," 
we    find    St.   Peter  saying   precisely   the    same 
thing    at    a  later    date,   in    his    catechetical   in- 
struction of  Cornelius;     "Jesus  which   was   of 
Nazareth,   how  God  anointed   Him  with  Holy 
Ghost  and  power ;  who  went  about  doing  good 
and  healing  all   those  who  were    oppressed  by 
the   devil,  because  God  was  with    Him."  ^      It 
would    be    hard    to    make    such    language    fit 
in  with  the  common   theory  that   the  miracles 
'  Acts  ii.  22.  2  Acts  X.  3S. 


94  OUR   LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

were  the  exercise  of  Christ's  Divine  nature, 
as  the  sufferings  were  of  His  humanity.  We 
should  in  that  case  have  read  something  more 
Hke  this :  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  Man  who 
displayed  Himself  to  you  as  more  than  man, 
by  mighty  deeds  and  wonders  and  signs  which 
He  did  among  you;"  "Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
how  from  His  birth  He  possessed  the  fulness 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  power ;  who  went 
about  doing  good  and  healing  all  that  were  op- 
pressed by  the  devil,  because  He  was  Himself 
God."  No  Christian  can  suppose  for  an  instant 
that  St.  Peter  thought  of  our  Lord  as  a  mere 
man,  or  that  the  author  of  the  Acts  intended 
to  represent  him  as  thinking  so  ;  yet,  so  far  as 
those  particular  words  go,  they  would  require 
less  violence  to  accommodate  them  to  such  a 
supposition  than  to  the  supposition  that  our 
Lord  in  His  miracles  was  drawing  upon  His 
own  personal  resources. 

It  is  of  great  interest  in  this  connexion  to 
endeavour  to  work  out  in  the  Bible  the  use 
of  the  word  "power"  and  similar  words  in 
reference   to   our  Lord's    life   upon  earth.     He 


OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 


is,  indeed,  spoken  of  as  exercising  vast  power. 
"  Wc  were  not  following  cunningly  devised 
fables,"  says  St.  Peter,  "  when  we  made  known 
to  you  the  power  and  presence  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  but  had  been  eye-witnesses  of  His 
majesty."  ^  "  Power  went  forth  from  Him,"  says 
St.  Luke,  "  and  healed  all."  ^  Our  Lord  was  con- 
scious of"  power  having  gone  forth  "  from  Him.-^ 
Men  came  to  Him  saying,  "  If  Thou  wilt.  Thou 
canst  make  me  clean  ;  "  ^  and  He  did  not 
repudiate  the  suggestion,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
healed  the  leper  as  of  His  own  bounty  and 
power :  "  I  will ;  be  thou  clean."  In  keeping 
with  this  expression.  He  is  said  to  have 
"bestowed  on  many  that  were  blind  the  gift 
of  sight."  ■'  To  others,  before  healing  them.  He 
Himself  put  the  question,  "  Do  ye  believe 
that  I  can  do  this  ? "  "^  When  a  poor  man, 
sickened  by  failures,  cried  to  Him  in  despair, 
"If  Thou   canst  do  anything,  have  mercy  upon 


*  2  Peter  i.   i6.     Doubts  concerning  the  authorship  of  the 
Epistle  do  not  invalidate  its  canonical  authority. 

-  St.  Luke  vi.  19.       '  St.  Luke  viii.  46.       ■*  St.  Matt.  viii.  2. 

*  St.  Luke  vii.  21  :  i^apla-aro  jSAeVeif.  ^  St.  Matt.  i\.  28. 


96         OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

US  and  help  us,"  ^  Jesus,  according  to  the  true 
reading,  replied  with  a  stern  rebuke,  To  ii 
guvy  ;  ("  If  Thou  canst  ? "),  as  if  indignant  at 
the  suggestion  that  power  might  be  wanting. 

And  yet  there  are  not  many  passages  in  the 
Gospels  which  speak  directly  of  our  Lord's 
"power."  The  word  "power"  does  not  occur, 
for  instance,  in  St.  John.  I  believe  I  have 
mentioned  all  the  passages  which  speak  of  His 
"power"  upon  earth,  except  one  or  two  which 
offer  food  for  serious  reflexion,  as  seeming  to 
indicate  limitations  within  which  He  was  pleased 
to  exercise  this  power :  "  He  could  do  no  mighty 
work  there,  save  that  He  laid  His  hands  upon  a 
few  sick  folk,  and  healed  them  :  and  He  marvelled 
because  of  their  unbelief."  ^  In  the  very  passage 
where  He  resents  the  imputation  of  the  possi- 
bility of  His  power  failing.  He  does  not  pursue 
simply,  "All  things  are  possible  to  Me;"  He 
conditions  the  exercise  of  His  power  (on  the 
common  interpretation)  by  the  faith  of  those  on 
whose  behalf  He  is  to  work  :  "  If  Thou  canst  ? 
All  things  are  possible  to  him  that  believeth."  ^ 

1  St,  Mark  ix.  22.         -  St.  Mark  vi.  5.         ^  St.  Mark  ix.  23. 


OUR  LORD'S  PO^V£R    UPON  EARTH.         97 

And  there  is  one  hard  phrase  in  St.  Luke's 
Gospel  which  might  appear  to  suggest  that  our 
Lord's  exercise  of  miraculous  power  was  not 
conditioned  only  by  the  presence  or  absence 
of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  recipients  of  His 
bounty  ;  nor  even  exclusively  by  the  will  of  our 
Blessed  Lord  Himself.  ''  It  came  to  pass  on 
one  of  those  days,  that  He  was  teaching,  and 
there  were  sitting  by  Pharisees  and  doctors 
of  the  law  who  were  come  out  of  every  village 
of  GaHlee  and  Judaea  and  Jerusalem  ;  and  there 
was  a  power  of  the  Lord  that  He  should  heal."  ^ 
It  looks  as  if  in  this  passage  we  were  to  take 
"  the  Lord  "  in  the  Old  Testament  sense, — not 
referring,  as  it  usually  does  in  the  New  Testament, 
to  the  person  of  Christ  Himself,  but  more 
generally  to  the  covenant  God  of  Israel.  But 
whether  it  is  to  be  referred  to  Christ  or  to  the 
Father,  the  special  mention  of  the  existence  of 
a  power  for  healing  on  that  occasion  seems  to 
indicate  that  the  very  power  was  not  always 
present,    or    not   always    present    to    an    equal 

*   St.  Luke  V.  17  :  Kai  5ui/o/i.is  Kvpiov  -^v  els  rh  iacrdai  ainov.     It 
seems  unnatural  to  make  avTov  refer  to  the  same  subject  as  Kvpiov. 

H 


98  OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

degree.  Sometimes,  if  the  power  was  present,  its 
exercise  was  hindered  by  men's  want  of  faith  ; 
sometimes,  if  we  rightly  understand  St.  Luke, 
the  power  itself,  according  to  "  the  Lord's  "  good 
pleasure,  was  withdrawn,  or  less  freely  extended. 
There  is  another  word,  which,  to  the  English 
reader's  great  loss,  has  been  too  often  con- 
founded with  the  word  Svva/uLig,  or  "  power," 
which  is  frequently  used  of  our  Blessed  Lord 
on  earth,  and  which  throws  light  upon  the 
source  and  nature  of  the  power  which  He 
exercised.  It  is  the  word  l^ovdla,  or  "autho- 
rity." It  would  not,  indeed,  be  true  to  affirm 
that  authority  is  always  power  delegated  ; 
for  "authority"  is  predicated  of  Him  to  whom 
no  delegation  from  another  is  possible.  "  It  is 
not  for  you  to  know  times  and  seasons,  which 
the  Father  hath  put  in  His  own  authority."  ^ 
Neither  is  authority  always  distinguished  from 
power  as  being  power  lawfully  enjoyed  —  a 
rightful  power.  The  Bible  even  speaks  of 
turning  men  "  from  the  authority  of  Satan " 
(if  such  an  expression  may  stand)  "  unto  God."  ^ 

^  Acts  i.  7.  ^  Acts  xxvi.  18. 


OUR   LORD'S  POWER    UFON  EARTH.         cjc) 

The  distinction  is  rather  between  the  inward 
force  or  faculty,  which  is  a  part  of  the  very 
being  of  him  who  has  "power,"  and  the  ex- 
ternal relationship,  by  virtue  of  which  one  thing 
is  superior  to  another,  and  able  to  command  it. 

In  hearing  and  seeing  the  life  of  Jesus,  men 
were  not  struck  only  with  the  inexhaustible 
force  which  sprang  up  within  Him — though  this, 
no  doubt,  struck  them  ; — they  were  struck  rather 
with  the  secure  position  of  superiority  in  which 
He  stood  to  men,  and  things.  "  The  multitudes 
were  astonished  at  His  doctrine  ;  for  He  taught 
them  as  having  authority,  and  not  as  their 
scribes."^  "His  word  was  with  authority.'"-^ 
"  They  were  all  amazed,  so  that  they  strove 
together,  saying,  '  What  is  this  .?  a  new  doctrine  ! 
With  authority  He  commandeth  even  the  unclean 
spirits,  and  they  obey  Him.'"^  "What  word  is 
this,  that  with  authority  and  power" — here 
St.  Luke  combines  the  two  words — "  He  com- 
mandeth the  unclean  spirits,  and  they  come 
out!"^ 

*  St.  Matt.  vii.  29.  '  St.  Luke  iv.  32. 

»  St.  Mark  i.  27.  *  St.  Luke  iv.  36. 


100       OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

But  a  position  of  authority  naturally  suggests 
inquiry  about  the  origin  and  legitimacy  of  that 
authority  ;  and  the  question,  "  By  what  authority 
doest  Thou  these  things  ?  "  leads  to  the  question, 
"  And  who  gave  Thee  this  authority  ? " 

And  here  our  Lord  and  the  Evangelists  leave 
us  in  no  doubt.  After  a  signal  exhibition  of 
the  "authority"  of  "the  Son  of  Man"  in  the 
moral  and  in  the  physical  order  at  once,  the 
multitude  goes  away  "fearing,  and  glorifying 
God,  which  had  given  such  authority  unto  men."  ^ 
When  the  Son  looks  back  upon  His  original 
mission  to  the  world,  and  speaks  of  the  world- 
wide authority  with  which  He  was  then  invested. 
He  ascribes  it,  not  to  His  own  Divine  nature, 
but  to  the  Father's  disposal  :  "  Glorify  Thy 
Son,  that  the  Son  may  glorify  Thee,  according 
as  Thou  gavest  Him  authority  over  all  flesh, 
that  He  should  give  eternal  life  to  all  that 
Thou  hast  given  Him."  ^  It  is  the  same  after 
the  Resurrection,  and  in  regard  to  a  wider 
empire:  "All  authority  was  given  unto  Me 
in   heaven    and    in    earth."  ^     Nay,    even    with 

^  St.  Matt.  ix.  8.       ^  St.John.  xvii.  2.      ^  St.  Matt,  xxviii.  i8. 


OUR   LORD'S  FOWER    UPON  EARTH.       TOI 

reference  to  the  Resurrection  itself— the  greatest 
of  the  miracles  of  our  Lord— the  one  thing  of 
which  He  says  that  He  does  it  "of  Himself,"  ^— 
that  Resurrection  of  which  He  said  in  a  parable, 
"  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in  three  days  I  will 
raise  it  up,"  •^— not  only  does  the  general  usage 
of  Scripture  ascribe  that  Resurrection  directly 
to  the  Father,  but  in  the  very  place  where 
Christ  says  that  He  effects  it,  and  the  death 
which  led  to  it,  "of  Himself,"  He  carries  His 
disciples  back  to  the  "authority"  by  which  He 
does  it.  "  I  lay  down  My  life,  in  order  that  I 
may  take  it  again.  No  man  took  it  from  Me, 
but  I  lay  it  down  of  Myself.  I  have  authority 
to  lay  it  down,  and  I  have  authority  to  take  it 
again.  This  commandment  I  received  from  My 
Father."  ^ 

While,  therefore,  all  our  Saviour's  actions 
upon  earth,  miraculous  and  ordinary,  reveal 
uninterruptedly  the  Father  with  whom  He  was 
one,  and  while  the  miraculous  actions  reveal  the 
highest  degree  of  power  and  authority  bestowed 
upon    Him    for    His    redeeming  work,  we  have 

1  St.  John  X.  iS.         -  St.  John  ii.  I9-         '  St.  John  x.  i8. 


I02       OUR  LORD'S  POWER   UPON  EARTH. 


as  yet  seen  nothing  in  Scripture  which  would 
compel  us  to  regard  His  miracles  as  wrought 
by  virtue  of  His  own  intrinsic  Godhead.  There 
are  many  things  which  point  in  an  opposite 
direction,  besides  those  speeches  of  St.  Peter  on 
which  we  have  already  touched,  which  tell  us 
that  it  was  God  who  did  Christ's  miracles  by 
means  of  Him.  There  are  many  things  which 
lead  us  to  suppose  that  the  miraculous  powers 
lodged  in  the  Incarnate  Son  were  an  enrichment 
of  His  human  nature,  in  its  faithful  maintenance 
of  a  right  creaturely  dependence  upon  God  and 
obedience  to  Him. 

Thus  the  miracles  of  our  Lord  are  traced  to 
the  operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  No  miracle 
was  wrought  by  Him  before  the  Baptism,  which 
was  also  His  definite  Unction  to  the  Messiahship. 
There  would  seem  to  be  no  satisfactory  reason 
for  this,  if  all  the  miracles  after  His  Baptism 
were  but  exhibitions  of  a  nature  which  He 
assuredly  had  from  the  beginning.  But  we  are 
not  left  to  conjecture.  "  And  Jesus,  full  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,"  says  St.  Luke,  "returned  from 
the  Jordan  ;  .  .  .  returned   in  the  power  of  the 


OUR   LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH.        IO3 


Spirit    into    Galilee."       His    first    discourse    at 
Nazareth    was    an    application    to    Himself    of 
the  ])rophecy,  "The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon 
Me  ;   because   He  hath    anointed  Me  to  preach 
the   gospel   to  the   poor,"  ^  and    so  on, — a  pas- 
sage which   does  not   indeed  refer  only  to   the 
miracles,  but  which  at  least  includes  them.     In 
like  manner  St.  Matthew  applies  to  our  Lord's 
miracles,   and   to  the   quiet  way   in  which  they 
were  done,  the  prophecy,  "  Behold  My  servant, 
whom  I  have  chosen.  ...   I  will  put  My  Spirit 
upon  Him,  and    He  shall   declare  judgment  to 
the    Gentiles."'-^      In    the   same   chapter    of    St. 
Matthew,  our    Lord    says   explicitly,    "If   I    by 
the  Spirit  of  God  cast  out  devils,  no  doubt  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  come  upon  you,"  ^  and  treats 
the     calumnies    that    were    heaped    upon    His 
gracious    miracles    as    blasphemy,    not    against 
Himself,    but    "against   the    Holy  Ghost." -^     It 
would  hardly  seem  natural  to  use  such  expres- 
sions  if  the   miracles  wrought   by    Christ   were 
the   outcome   of  His    personal    Godhead  ;    they 


'  St.  Luke  iv.  I,  14.  iS.  'St.  Matt.  xii.  iS. 

"^  St.  Matt.  xii.  2S  •••  St.  Matt.  xii.  ^c;.. 


104  •    OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

are  rep-arded  as  the  outcome  of  the  connexion 
between  the  Holy  Ghost  and  His  most  sacred 
humanity. 

Once  more,  our  Blessed  Lord,  so  far  from 
cflvincf  us  to  understand  that  His  own  miracles 
stand  on  an  unique  footing,  incommunicably  His 
alone,  speaks  of  them  as  if  other  men  might  in 
some  sense  share  them,  and  even  outstrip  them. 
"We,"  He  says,  according  to  the  best  reading 
— and  it  is  but  seldom  that  our  Lord  says 
"We" — "We  must  work  the  works  of  Him  that 
sent  Me,  while  it  is  day."  ^  And  in  another 
place  :  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you.  He  that 
believeth  in  Me,  the  works  that  I  do  shall  he 
do  also ;  and  greater  than  these  shall  he  do  ; 
because  I  go  unto  the  Father."  ^  And  once 
more  :  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  If  ye  have  faith, 
and  doubt  not,  ye  shall  not  only  do  the  miracle 
of  the  fig-tree,  but  if  ye  shall  even  say  to  this 
mountain,  Be  thou  removed  and  cast  into  the 
sea,  it  shall  be  done ;  and  all  things  whatso- 
ever ye  shall  ask  in  prayer,  believing,  ye  shall 
receive."  ^ 

^  St.  John  ix.  4.       -  St.  John  xiv.  12.        ^  g^^  jyj^^^f^  j.^j_  2i  f. 


OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH.        105 


Our  Lord  seems  thus  to  invite  comparison 
between  the  miracles  which  He  did  upon 
earth,  and  those  done  by  servants  of  God  before 
and  since.  The  difference  does  not  seem  to 
be  that  His  were  more  in  number  than  those 
done  by  a  Moses  or  an  Elisha,  a  St.  Peter, 
or  St.  Paul.  They  probably  were  actually  more 
in  number  ;  but  even  a  great  numerical  excess 
would  hardly  prove  that  His  miracles  were  done 
by  inherent  powers  of  His  own,  while  Moses 
and  St.  Peter  did  theirs  in  the  power  of  God. 
Nor  is  the  difference  that  His  were  of  a  more 
startling  and  inexplicable  kind  than  theirs.  To 
turn  all  the  waters  of  Egypt  into  blood  was  as 
startling  and  inexplicable  as  to  turn  the  water 
at  Cana  into  wine.  To  make  an  axehead  of  iron 
float  to  the  surface  of  the  river  was  as  strange  as 
to  walk,  and  to  make  another  man  walk,  upon 
the  sea.  The  difference  does  not  seem  even  to 
have  lain — or,  at  any  rate,  not  altogether — in  the 
way  in  which  the  object  was  achieved.  If  our 
Lord  "gives"  sight  to  the  blind,  as  from  His 
own  wealth  and  benevolence,  St.  Peter  says  to 
the  lame  man  at  the  temple,  "  Such  as  I  have, 


I06       OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 


give  I  thee :  in  the  name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 

rise   up    and   walk."  ^      Christ  seems  clearly  to 

indicate    that     His     own     miracles    were     the 

achievements   of  faith    and   prayer,   like    those 

of  others.      He   looks  up  to  heaven  before   He 

heals.^     "  Father,"  He  cries,  before  His  last  great 

miracle,   "  I   thank   Thee  that  Thou  hast  heard 

Me."  ^     Perhaps  His  words  just  quoted,  about  the 

fig  tree  and  the  mountain,  are  intended  to  imply 

that  if  the  disciples  would  work   miracles  like 

their  Master's,  they  must  imitate  His  undoubting 

faith,  and  make  their  requests  known  in  prayers 

like  His.      Perhaps,   in   His  reply  to  the  father 

of  the  lunatic  child,   He  meant  not  only,   "All 

things  are  possible  to  thee   if  thou   believest," 

but  also,  "  All  things  are  possible  to  Me,  because 

I     believe."       There    was     a    great    difference 

between    our    Saviour's   miracles   and    those   of 

Old    Testament    saints,    and    to    a   less  extent 

between  those  which  He, did  Himself  upon  earth 

and  those  greater  works  which   apostolic    men 

did,   by  His   power,    after    He   was   gone ;   but 

the  difference  was  not  in  the  number,  nor  in  the 

^  Acts  iii.  6.      2  St.  Mark  vii.  34  ;  cp.  vi.  41.      ^  St.  John  xi.  41. 


OUR   LORD'S   POWER    UPON  EARTH.        IO7 

wonderfulncss,  nor  altogether  in  the  method 
or  rationale  of  them.  It  was  in  the  spiritual 
teachinc^  which  they  conveyed  ;  in  the  moral 
character  which  they  revealed  ;  in  the  mind 
and  will  which  prompted  them.  The  miracles 
in  the  Acts  are  evidences  of  a  spiritual  power 
which  is  unsurpassed  in  the  Gospels  ;  but  it  is 
perhaps  allowable  to  discern  in  them  a  falling 
off  from  the  delicacy  and  the  rich  suggestiveness 
of  those  recorded  to  have  been  wrought  by 
Christ  Himself.^ 

This  brings  us  to  a  point  in  which  it  may, 
perhaps,  be  said  that  the  mode  of  operation — 
or  the  rationale,  as  I  called  it  just  now — of  our 
Blessed  Redeemer's  miracles  differed  from  that 
of  the  miracles  of  all  other  servants  of  God.  Our 
Redeemer    stood,    by     His    very   nature,    in    a 

^  "Infinitely  as  [the  miracles  of  Christ]  transcended  the 
natural  powers  of  man,  they  did  not  go  beyond  the  powers 
which  may  supernaturally  be  bestowed  upon  man.  For  He 
Himself  declares  that  the  Apostles  should  not  only  do  such 
works  as  He  had  done,  but  greater  works.  There  is  nothing, 
in  their  nature  or  their  degree,  to  determine  whether  they  were 
wrought  by  the  proper  power  of  the  Divine  Word,  or  by  power 
bestowed  upon  the  Incarnate  Word  "  (Bishop  O'Brien's  Charge 
p.  105.  The  Bishop  goes  on  to  say  that  Scripture  affords  us 
''ample  means"  of  determining  in  favour  of  the  latter  view). 


I08       OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

unique  relationship,  not  only  with  God,  but  also 
with  His  fellow-men.  No  other  saint  could 
possibly  be  to  mankind,  or  to  any  member  of 
the  race,  what  Christ  was  and  is.  I  do  not 
mean  that  His  Divine  Sonship  puts  an  infinite 
distance  between  the  saints  and  Him — that  is 
self-evident  ;  but  as  Son  of  Man  also,  as  Second 
Adam,  as  the  new  Representative  and  Head  of 
humanity,  He  occupies  a  position  with  regard 
to  mankind  and  to  individual  men  which  no 
one  can  share  with  Him,  although  some  may 
come  a  very  little  nearer  to  such  a  position  than 
others.  This  fact  may  perhaps  help  to  interpret 
certain  phenomena  in  our  Lord's  miracles  of 
healing  which  are  not  to  be  observed  in  the 
miraculous  healings  wrought  by  others. 

It  has  been  sometimes  attempted  to  show  that 
while  our  Lord's  miracles  were  wrought  with  the 
utmost  ease  and  certainty,  the  miracles  of  other 
men  cost  them  anxiety  and  effort.  Elijah  and 
Elisha  stretch  themselves  upon  the  dead  boy,  put 
hand  on  hand  and  mouth  on  mouth,  rise  and 
walk  to  and  fro  in  the  house  to  recover  energy 
for  a  fresh  effort   in  their  wrestling  with   death. 


OUR   LORD'S  POWER   UPON  EARTH.        IO9 


But  Christ  simply  stands  and  says  to  the  dead 
maiden,  "  Talitha  cumi,"  and  the  maid  arises; 
to  the  dead  younj^  man  at  Nain,  "  Young  man, 
I  say  unto  thee,  Arise,"  and  he  sits  up  and 
begins  to  speak.  It  is  certainly  a  remarkable 
contrast ;  but  before  we  can  be  sure  that  we 
understand  it  rightly,  we  must  look  at  other 
cases  which  present  another  aspect  of  Christ's 
power  of  healing.  One  day,  when  He  was  about 
to  heal  a  deaf  man  in  private,  those  few  who 
were  present,  and  could  hear  what  the  man  to 
be  healed  could  not  hear,  observed  our  Lord 
sigh,  as  He  looked  up  to  heaven,  before  He 
spoke  His  irresistible  "  Ephphatha."  ^  Another 
day  a  strange  inward  distress  seized  Him,  as 
He  went,  confident  of  the  issue,  to  raise  a  friend 
from  a  four  days'  death  ;  He  wept,  He  "  troubled 
Himself"  as  if  by  a  voluntary  act,  He  "groaned," 
and  "again  groaned  within  Himself,"  whatever 
may  be  the  exact  meaning  of  the  strange  word.'^ 
When  He  had  absolved  the  sins  of  a  palsied 
man  whom  He  was  expected  to  cure  of  his 
palsy,    He   replied    to   the   cavillers   by  asking, 

*  St.  Mark  vii.  34.  -  St.  John  xi.  33,  35,  38. 


no       OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

"  Whether  is  easier,  to  say,  Thy  sins  be  forgiven 
thee,  or  to  say.  Arise  and  walk  ? "  ^  as  if  suggest- 
ing that  neither  benefit  could  be  conferred 
without  cost.  As  He  passes  through  a  crowd, 
a  woman  touches  His  garment  and  is  made 
whole  of  her  disease.  Christ  becomes  aware  of 
what  has  been  done,  by  experiencing  some  cor- 
responding sensation  in  Himself.  "Somebody 
hath  touched  Me,  for  I  perceive  that  virtue  is 
gone  out  of  Me."  ^  And  St.  Matthew  tells  us 
of  a  certain  evening  when  they  brought  to  Him, 
at  Capernaum,  a  great  number  of  persons  suffering 
from  various  ailments,  and  Jesus  "cast  out  the 
devils  with  a  word  ; "  and  he  "  healed  all  those 
who  were  ill."  There  was  no  failure — apparently 
no  difficulty.  It  was  an  unparalleled  exhibition 
of  mastery  over  mental  and  physical  disease. 
But,  whether  it  was  that  our  Lord  explained 
the  matter  afterwards  to  His  disciples,  or  whether 
it  was  that  their  affectionate  eyes  saw  something 
that  others  did  not  see,  the  Evangelist  remarks 
upon  what  he  probably  witnessed  that  evening 
in   person   that   this  was    done    "that   it    might 

*  St.  Matt.  ix.  5.  2  St.  Luke  viii.  46. 


OUR   LORD'S  FOIVER    UPON  EAR7I/.        Ill 

be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  Esaias  the 
prophet,  saying,  'He  took  our  sicknesses  Him- 
self, and  bare  our  diseases.'  "  ^ 

These  words  do  not  suggest  the  thought 
of  one  who  went  about  healing  right  and  left 
by  a  mere  fiat  of  Divine  power.  They  point 
rather  to  an  identification  of  the  Son  of  Man 
with  men  which  overpassed  the  very  bounds 
of  personality,  and  estabhshed  a  community,  a 
solidarity  (if  the  word  may  be  used)  between 
Him  and  them,  whereby  their  sickness  was 
merged  in  His  unalterable  health,  and  at  an 
unimaginable  cost  to  Him  they  are  made  whole 
out  of  His  grief. 

I  would  repeat  here  what  I  said  in  the  first 
lecture,  that  my  object  is  not  to  put  forth  a 
theory,  but  rather  to  collect  the  facts  on  which 
others  may  form  theories  if  they  please  ;  but 
I  believe  that  I  have  not  overlooked  at  any 
rate  any  large  body  of  Scriptural  data  which 
would  tend  to  a  different  conclusion  ;  and  I 
confess  that  to   my   mind   it  is  more  attractive, 

•  St.  Malt.  viii.  17.  St.  Matthew  was  at  Capernaum  at  tlic 
time. 


112       OUR  LORD'S  POWER    UPON  EARTH. 

as  well  as  more  loyal  to  the  language  of  the 
Gospels,  instead  of  supposing  Christ  to  have 
walked  the  earth  in  constant  exercise  of  His 
own  Divine  powers,  to  think  of  the  Incarnate 
Son  as  undergoing  for  our  sake  the  double  self- 
sacrifice — not  only  refusing,  as  has  been  often 
said,  to  use  His  Divine  omnipotence  for  His  own 
advantage,  but  also  ^refusing  to  use  it  even  for 
ours, — preferring  rather  to  work  out  our  restora- 
tion by  the  toilsome  and  far-reaching  exertions 
and  sufferings  of  His  human  body  and  soul  and 
spirit,  in  reliance  upon  Another  who  is  our  Father 
and  His  Father,  His  God  as  well  as  our  God. 

Indeed,  if  we  are  to  look  anywhere  in  the 
Incarnate  life  for  a  display  of  the  forces  of 
Christ's  Divine  personality,  perhaps  we  may 
rightly  look  for  it  in  the  very  opposite  direction 
from  that  in  which  Christians  have  often  looked. 
Instead  of  looking  at  His  mighty  deeds,  perhaps 
we  should  think  rather  of  His  mighty  suffer- 
ings. I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  to  suggest 
that  the  Godhead  in  Christ  became  passible — 
although  the  doctrine  that  Godhead  must  be 
incapable  of  suffering  is  more  a  doctrine  of  the 


OUR   LORD'S  FOWER    Uf ON  EARTH.        113 

philosophers  than  of  the  Bible,  l^iit  if  ever 
there  was  a  moment  in  which  the  weakness 
of  His  human  nature  seems  to  have  been 
upheld  and  reinforced  by  the  inexhaustible 
strength  of  His  Divinity,  it  was,  perhaps,  during 
those  three  hours  on  the  Cross,  at  the  end  of 
which  He  cried  that  He  had  been  forsaken. 
Assuredly  the  forces  which  then  upheld  Him, 
whether  to  be  found  in  His  own  inward  depths, 
or  in  the  succours  of  the  God  of  whose  apparent 
absence  He  complained,  did  not  come  in  to 
neutralise  the  sufferings  or  to  lift  Him  out  of 
them.  Quite  the  contrary,  they  lent  themselves, 
as  it  were,  to  extend  indefinitely  the  capacity  of 
the  human  nature  for  realising  every  element 
in  the  suffering.  They  enabled  Him  to  bear 
more,  and  longer,  and  to  reach  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  mystery  of  sin.  Other  miracles 
of  Christ's  life,  like  the  miracles  of  the  prophets, 
might  have  been  those  of  a  man  in  complete 
harmony  with  God  ;  the  miracle  of  the  Atoning 
Passion  seems  to  me  to  be  the  one  which  comes 
nearest  to  being  the  miracle  of  the  Divine  Per- 
sonality itself. 

I 


LECTURE    IV. 

OUR  lord's  knowledge  upon  earth- 
appearances  OF  LIMITATION. 

In  the  last  two  lectures,  I  endeavoured  to  collect 
and  arrange,  as  far  as  lay  in  my  power,  the 
phenomena  set  before  us  in  Holy  Scripture 
with  regard  to  the  development  of  our  Lord's 
human  character,  and  with  regard  to  the  power 
displayed  by  Him  during  His  life  on  earth.  It 
is  possible  that  the  facts,  so  collected  and 
arranged,  may  have  seemed  to  some  of  my 
hearers  to  wear  an  aspect  to  which  they  were 
unaccustomed.  Nevertheless,  it  is  our  duty  to 
examine  facts,  and  not  to  shrink  from  them. 
At  any  rate,  gentlemen,  you  will  believe  that 
the  attempt  has  been  made  honestly  and  im- 
partially.    Had  I  known  of  any  facts  recorded 


APPEARANCES  OF  LI  MIT  A  T70.V.  I  [  5 

in  Scripture  which  would  have  put  a  different 
complexion  upon  the  result,  I  should  certainly 
have  mentioned  them  ;  but  I  know  of  none. 
Nor  need  we  have  any  fears  in  following  the 
exact  guidance  of  the  Bible.  We  are  safe,  and 
the  honour  of  our  Lord  is  safe,  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to 
write  of  Him  in  the  first  days  of  the  Church.^ 
Nothing  that  is  found  in  Scripture  will  shake 
our  belief  in  the  fulness  of  Christ's  eternal  God- 
head, to  which  all  the  Scriptures  bear  witness  ; 
and  it  is  only  so  much  pure  gain,  if  by  new 
studies,  and  comparing  of  Scripture  with  Scrip- 
ture, we  are  led  to  realise  more  distinctly  that 
His  humanity  is  no  less  full  and  true  than  His 
Divinity. 

When  we  pass  on  to  consider  the  phenomena 

'  "It  is  to  Scripture,  not  to  reason,  that  we  must  look  for  the 
knowledge  that  will  enable  us  either  to  affirm  or  to  deny  with 
any  degree  of  confidence  in  the  case.  I  believe,  indeed,  that  the 
longer  and  the  more  deeply  that  it  is  considered  independently 
of  Scripture,  the  deeper  and  the  more  hopelessly  inscrutable  will 
the  mystery  appear.  .  .  .  Modest  minds  must  be  thoroughly 
convinced  that  their  safest  and  wisest  course  is  to  return  to 
Scripture,  and  to  rest  satisfied  with  the  information  which  it 
gives  on  this  mysterious  subject "  (Bishop  O'Brien's  Charge 
P-  35)- 


1 6    OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH- 


of  the  Knowledge  displayed  by  our  Lord  in 
His  earthly  sojourn,  we  have  a  more  difficult 
task  to  deal  with  than  that  which  we  attempted 
in  my  last  lecture.  It  is  not  hard  to  conceive 
of  power  possessed  but  unused.  Experience 
presents  abundant  examples  of  such  a  thing. 
We  can  readily  think  of  an  Almighty  person 
choosing  to  perform  a  beneficent  task  by 
methods  other  than  those  of  omnipotence.  But 
it  is  much  harder  to  bring  ourselves  even  to 
entertain  such  a  question  as  this  —  whether 
one  who  knows  can  voluntarily  exclude  his 
knowledge  from  consciousness,  and  only  gradu- 
ally win  it  back  for  himself  by  a  process  of 
learning }  \ 

There  are  many  who  think  it  impossible  that 
our  Lord,  in  becoming  man,  should  have  done 
this, — should  have  shut  out  from  His  life  on 
earth  that  knowledge  of  all  things  temporal  as 
well  as  eternal  which  necessarily  belonged  to 
Him  as  God.  Among  those  who  maintain  that 
He  did  not,  there  are  some  who  hold  that  He 
was  simultaneously  omniscient  and  ignorant, 
knowing  all  things  as  God  at  the  same  moment 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  I  17 

of  time  that  humanly  He  knew  nothing.^  There 
are  others  who  hold  that  even  in  His  human 
nature  Christ  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  at 
any  time  really  ignorant  of  anything,  y  St.  Cyril 
of  Alexandria  frankly  adopts  the  view  that  our 
Lord  only  appeared  to  be  ignorant  of  some 
things,  in  order  to  avoid  a  seeming  incongruity 
between  His  bodily  weakness  and  His  Divine 
knowledge.2  The  modern  Jesuit  theology  seems 
to  deny  even  the  appearance  of  ignorance. 
"The  human  nature,"  says  Hurter,  the  most 
trusted  living  dogmatist  among  the  Jesuits, 
"was  subject  to  the  general  or  common  weak- 
nesses of  human  nature  ;  it  could  die  ;  it  could 
suffer  various  disadvantages,  such  as  fatigue, 
and  so  forth,  with  the  exception  of  those  which 
carry  a  look  of  impropriety,  such  as  ignorance."  ^ 

^  "  When  it  is  said  that,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  He  knew 
...  as  the  Word,  but  was  ignorant  ...  as  Man  ;  or  that 
while  He  knew  ...  as  regarded  His  Divine  Nature,  He  was 
ignorant  ...  as  regarded  His  Human  Nature;  or  that  His 
Divine  Nature  knew  .  .  .  ,  but  His  Human  Nature  was  ignorant 
.  .  . ;  we  are  in  reality,  though  not  in  words,  supposing  Him 
to  be  made  up  of  two  Persons"  (Bishop  O'Brien  op.  cit.  p. 
104).     This  is  Theodoret's  error. 

*  See  (e.g.)  Quod  unus  sit  Christus  p.  760,  Aubert. 

^   Theol.  Dogm.  Compendium  ii.  \).  364. 


1 8     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH- 


Our  task  is  to  examine  and  marshal  the 
facts,  not  to  frame  an  a  priori  doctrine  ;  but 
this  may  be  premised — namely,  that  all  Christ's 
/knowledge,  as  conveyed  to  us  in  the  Gospel 
'  teaching,  was,  in  its  form,  human  knowledge, 
not  Divine.  ;  This  may  sound  strange  ;  but  it 
will  be  easier  to  grasp  if  we  distinguish 
clearly  between  the  source  of  His  knowledge 
and  its  form.  Before  knowledge  which  was 
Divine  in  its  origin  could  come  through  Him 
to  us,  it  must  needs  be  translated  into  human 
knowledge,  by  passing  through  His  human  mind, 
expressed  by  His  human  lips  in  human  lan- 
guage. If,  during  His  life  on  earth,  He  had 
a  Divine  form  of  knowledge  along  with  a 
human  form,  such  Divine  form  of  knowledge 
must  be  beyond  our  powers  of  discernment. 
The  knowledge  which  is  available  for  us  may 
be  Divine  in  its  origin,  but  is  human  in  its 
form. 

We  are  then  to  consider  what  is  told  us  con- 
cerning this  human  knowledge  of  the  Incarnate 
Word  ;  and  to-day  we  will  consider  such  in- 
dications   as     may    be    alleged     in    favour    of 


AIPEARASXKS   OF  LIMITATION.  1  I9 

thinkini;-  that  it  was  not  an  altoc^cthcr  unlimited 
knowledge. 

Now  there  is,  first  of  all,  a  very  difficult  text  to 
be  considered,  in  which  our  Lord  seems,  in  express 
terms,  to  declare  Himself  to  be  ignorant  upon  a 
certain  point.  It  is,  of  course,  the  saying,  ''But 
concerning  that  day  or  that  hour  none  knoweth, 
— no,  not  the  angels  in  heaven,  nor  yet  the  Son, 
— except  the  Father."  ^  To  discuss  the  history 
of  the  interpretation  of  this  text  would  require 
a  lecture  to  itself,  and  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
describe  how  it  has  been  understood  by  various 
writers,  ancient  and  modern.  The  Arians 
naturally  seized  upon  it,  and  asserted  on  the 
strength  of  it  that  Christ  was  essentially  inferior 
to  God.  The  replies  of  Catholic  apologists 
vary  greatly  in  spiritual  depth,  in  acuteness, 
and  even  (it  must  be  confessed)  in  candour. 
Probably,  however,  the  largest  consensus  of 
opinion  would  prove  to  be  in  favour  of  sup- 
posing that  our  Lord  acknowledges  a  real 
ignorance  on  His  own  part  with  regard  to  this 
one  matter — that   icfnorance  being    incident  to 


'   St.  Mark  xiii. 


120    OUR  LORD'S  KNO  WLED GE  UPON  EA R TH— 

His  temporary  humiliation,  and  afifecting  only 
His  human  mind,  not  His  Divine  nature. 

If  we  study  the  text  closely,  we  see  that  the 
Authorised  Version  (not  that  it  makes  very 
much  difference)  creates  somewhat  more  of  a 
climax  in  the  sentence  than  the  original  quite 
warrants.  The  Greek  is  oO^ac  oll^v,  "none 
knoweth,"  quite  generally  ;  there  is  no  express 
triple  ascent,  from  men  to  angels,  from  angels 
to  the  Son.  The  ovl^iq  dltv  includes  all  that 
follows,  and  would  naturally  have  led  on  at 
once  to  £t  ixY\  6  Trariip,  "  none  knoweth,  except  the 
Father ; "  but  then,  to  strengthen  the  negation, 
and  practically  to  induce  the  disciples  to  be 
content  with  their  ignorance,  our  Lord  inserts 
the  words  which  tell  them  that  the  universal 
ignorance  which  He  has  predicated  is  indeed 
universal,  and  not  human  only  —  including 
beings  above  mankind,  as  well  as  man.  "  None 
knoweth — no,  not  the  angels  in  heaven,  nor 
yet  the  Son — except  the  Father."  All  the 
same,  the  sentence  is  a  climax,  and  a  pointed 
one.  Our  Lord  does  not  say  (what  would  have 
been  good  Greek)  ouSe  ol  a /yaXoi  ovr^  6  viog,  as 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  121 

if  the  Son  were  in  the  same  class  of  beings  with 
the  angels  in  heaven,  only  the  highest  of  them. 
He  says,  ou^t  .  .  .  oi/'St  ;  as  if  to  say,  "  You  might 
suppose  that  the  secret  was  only  a  secret  from 
those  on  earth ;  but  it  is  kept  a  secret  even 
from  those  in  heaven.  You  might  suppose  that 
the  secret  was  only  a  secret  for  created  beings, 
but  it  is  a  secret  for  the  uncreated  Son  Himself. 
The  Father  alone  knows  it." 

I  confess  that  the  more  I  study  the  passage, 
the  less  satisfied  I  am  to  think  that  our  Lord 
is  referring  to  Himself  as  conditioned  by  the 
special  circumstances  in  which  He  spoke,  and 
only  then  to  the  human  part  of  His  composite 
consciousness.  The  climax  itself  seems  against 
it,  especially  with  the  words,  ''  in  heaven ; " 
for  on  any  showing  in  His  human  nature  Christ 
was  not  yet  in  heaven,  but  was  made  "  a  little 
lower  than  the  angels."  We  should  at  least 
have  expected  Him  to  say,  ''  None  knoweth — 
no,  not  the  angels  in  heaven  ;  nor  even  I,"  or, 
"  nor  even  the  Son  of  ]\Ian."  This  would  easily 
have  given  room  for  the  necessary  gloss,  con- 
fining His  ignorance  to  His  human  nature,  and 


122     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTLi— 

to  His  passing  phase  of  existence.  If  He  had 
even  said,  "  No,  not  the  Son  of  God,"  there 
would  have  been  something  to  help  the  Inter- 
pretation. But,  with  all  the  force  of  a  powerful 
climax,  our  Lord  leads  up  to  His  most  absolute 
and  eternal  title,  "  no,  not  the  Son,"  and  follows 
it  by  the  absolute  correlative,  "  except  the 
Father." 

It  is  impossible  to  look  through  the  passages 
where  Christ  is  spoken  of  under  this  absolute 
title  without  feeling  that  it  means  more  here 
than  the  common  interpretation  allows.  It  is 
not  a  title  which  is  frequently  and  loosely  used. 
This  is  the  only  passage  in  which  St.  Mark  uses 
it.  The  only  other  occasion  where  it  occurs  in  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  is  the  solemn  passage,  "  None 
knoweth  the  Son,  but  the  Father ;  neither  doth 
any  know  the  Father,  but  the  Son,  and  he  to 
whomsoever  the  Son  is  pleased  to  reveal  Him."  ^ 
It  occurs  once  in  St.  Paul :  "  Then  shall  the 
Son  also  Himself  be  subjected  to  Him  that 
subjected  all  things  to  Him,  that  God  may  be 
all  things  in  all."^     It  occurs  once  in  the  Epistle 

1  St.  Matt.  xi.  27  ;  comp.  St.  Lukex.  22.       '  i  Cor.  xv.  28. 


to  the  Hebrews  :  "  But  unto  the  Son  lie  saith, 
Thy  throne,  O  God,  is  for  ever  and  ever.  .  .  . 
And  Thou,  Lord,  in  the  beginning  didst  lay 
the  foundation  of  the  earth."  ^  It  occurs  twenty- 
two  times  in  the  writings  of  St.  John ;  and 
every  time,  as  the  passages  which  I  have  quoted 
from  elsewhere  would  lead  us  to  expect,  the  title 
points  to  the  eternal  and  necessary  relations  ot 
the  persons  of  the  Godhead,  and  not  to  anything 
resulting  from  the  Incarnation.  For  instance, 
when  Christ  says,  "  The  Son  can  do  nothing  of 
Himself,"^  no  one  can  suppose  that  He  is  refer- 
ring to  restrictions  imposed  upon  His  Divine 
liberties  by  His  earthly  state  :  He  lays  open 
the  very  bond  which  connects  the  Father  and 
Himself  irrespective  of  creation  and  its  move- 
ments. Of  course  the  addition  of  qualifying 
words  might  point  us  to  something  accidental 
or  assumed,  as,  for  instance,  when  He  says, 
"The  Father  hath  committed  all  judgment  unto 
the  Son  .  .  .  because  He  is  Son  of  Man  ;"^  but 
without  those  last  words  we  should  never  have 

*  Heb.  i.  2  foil.     I  take  6  0eos  to  be  the  vocative  ;  but  it  makes 
little  difference  for  the  present  purpose  to  take  it  otherwise. 
2  St.  John  V.  19,  ^  St.  John  v.  22,  27. 


124    OUR  L ORD'S  KNO  WLEDGE  UPON  EAR TH— 


gathered  that  the  reason  why  the  Son  is  our 
Judge  is  a  reason  lying  outside  the  eternal  and 
necessary  relations  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity. 
In  the  same  way,  if  Christ  had  said,  ''None 
knoweth,  no,  not  the  angels  in  heaven,  nor  yet 
the  Son  Himself  upon  earth,"  all  would  have 
been  plain.  But  when  He  says  absolutely,  ''  nor 
yet  the  Son,  but  the  Father,"  we  must,  I  believe, 
see  in  the  statement  something  belonging  to 
the  essential  relation  of  Son  to  Father  in  the 
Godhead. 

If  this  is  so,  the  subject  of  my  lectures  does 
not  demand  that  I  should  inquire  further  into 
the  meaning  of  the  text.  We  are  investigating 
what  is  told  us  concerning  our  Lord's  know- 
ledge upon  earth,  not  the  fundamental  con- 
ditions of  the  existence  of  the  Eternal  Son. 
But  I  will  avow  that  if  the  Son  says  that  He 
Himself,  as  Son,  does  not  know  concerning 
the  day  and  hour  of  the  Judgment,  then,  in 
spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  Theodoret,^  I 
must  side  rather  with  the  Cyrillian  interpreters, 
and   suppose   that    He   does    not   predicate    of 

^  Reprehens,  xii.  CapitiDii  Cy villi,  Anathein.  4. 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMllATION.  125 

Himself  an  absolute  and  entire  ignorance. 
From  what  other  Scriptures  tell  us,  it  is  plain 
that  whatever  the  Father  knows,  the  Son  knows 
also— and  that  of  necessity  no  less  than  of 
choice.  I  should,  therefore,  be  inclined  to  class 
the  passage  with  others  like  "It  is  not  Mine 
to  give,  but  it  shall  be  given  to  them  for  whom 
it  is  prepared  of  My  Father."  ^  It  would  imply 
that  the  cognisance  of  such  questions  as  those 
of  times  and  seasons,  along  with  all  other  forms 
of  predestination,  lies  not  with  created  beings, 
nor  even  with  the  Son,  as  Son,  but  with  Him' 
alone  who  is  the  source  of  all  thought  and 
purpose  and  action,  even  the  Father.  But 
however  the  text  may  be  interpreted,  no  way 
of  interpreting  it  seems  to  my  mind  so  full  of 
difficulties  as  that  which  would  make  the  date 
of  the  Judgment  a  solitary  and  designed  excep- 
tion to  a  human  knowledge  otherwise  universal 
on  the  part  of  the  Incarnate  Lord. 

Leaving  this  text,  therefore,  as  not  bearing 
directly  upon  our  subject,  let  us  pass  to  tha^ 
group  of  texts  in  which  there  is  mention  of  our 

'  St.  Matt.  XX.  23. 


126     OUR  L ORUS  KNO IV LED GE  UPON  EA R TH- 


Lord's  intellectual  development.  "The  young 
Child  grew,  and  strengthened,  filling  continually 
(irXripoviLiEvov)  with  wisdom,  and  the  grace  (or 
favour)  of  God  was  upon  Him."  ^  "Jesus 
advanced  (TrpotKoimv),  in  wisdom  and  stature 
and  grace  (or  favour)  with  God  and  men."  ^ 
With  these  words  of  the  Gospel,  describing 
the  sacred  childhood  and  youth  respectively, 
we  may  set  once  more  a  passage  of  prophecy  on 
which  we  have  touched  before.  "  The  Lord  God 
hath  given  Me  the  tongue  of  the  scholar,  that 
I  should  know  how  to  speak  a  word  in  season 
to  him  that  is  weary :  He  wakeneth  {i.e. 
teacheth)  morning  by  morning,  He  wakeneth 
Mine  ear  to  hear  as  the  scholar."  ^ 

Now,  it  may  justly  be  said  that  these  texts  do 
not  deal  definitely  and  only  with  an  intellectual 
development — not  even  the  second,  which  is 
the  locus  classiais.  St.  Luke  does  not  say, 
"Jesus  advanced  in  knowledge."  Wisdom  is 
a  larger  thing  than  knowledge ;  and  in  the 
Bible  it  has  a  meaning  which  is  even  more 
distinctly  ethical  than  mental     To  advance  in 

^  St.  Luke  ii.  40.  -  St.  Luke  ii.  52.  ^  Isa.  1.  4. 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  1 27 


wisdom  means  mucli  more  than  an  increasing 
accumulation  of  facts  acquired.  It  includes  the 
faculty  of  insight  and  discernment,  to  penetrate 
the  significance  of  things ;  and  the  practical 
sagacity  which  sees,  from  such  a  study  of  facts, 
what  is  to  be  done ;  perhaps,  above  all,  it 
involves  the  reverent  recognition  of  God,  and 
His  sobering  and  uplifting  presence.  St.  Luke's 
language  does  not,  therefore,  directly  teach  that 
the  Holy  Child  began  with  knowing  nothing, 
and  that  the  bounds  of  a  sinless  and  natural 
ignorance  retired,  as  He  came  to  have  a  mind 
and  memory  more  and  more  stored  with  truths 
which  He  had  learned.  Yet  it  cannot  be  disputed 
that  the  main  effect  of  the  text  is  to  set  before 
us  the  picture  of  a  perfect  development  in  every 
department  of  life  —  ethical  and  intellectual, 
physical,  religious.  It  was  the  first  occasion 
on  which  the  world  had  seen  a  normal  and 
sound  human  development  —  except,  as  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  sadly  notes,  that  the 
normal  development  took  place  in  circumstances 
which  were  not  normal  :  "  He  learned  by  the 
things  which  He  suffered."    And  however  much 


128     OUR  L  OR  US  KNO  WLED  GE  UPON  EA  R  TH— 


we  may  admit  the  ethical  aspect  of  that 
"wisdom"  in  which  Jesus  advanced,  it  cannot 
at  any  rate  altogether  exclude  the  element 
of  knowledge  in  one  important  direction.  It 
involves  at  least  a  growing  appreciation  of 
the  ways  and  purposes  of  God  to  which  Jesus 
was  to  devote  Himself.  It  would  impair  our 
confidence  in  the  accuracy  of  the  Scriptures,  as 
well  as  our  sense  of  true  fellowship  with  the  life 
of  the  Incarnate  Son,  if  we  could  suppose,  with 
St.  Cyril,  in  opposition  to  what  seems  to  be 
the  obvious  meaning  of  St.  Luke's  language, 
that  the  human  mind  of  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem, 
of  the  Boy  at  Nazareth,  was  at  each  instant 
from  the  beginning  scientifically  and  uniformly 
acquainted  with  every  branch  of  knowledge,  and 
only  refrained  from  appearing  to  be  so,  out  of 
respect  for  the  feelings  of  those  around  Him.^ 

^  "As  His  body  grew  visibly,  like  the  bodies  of  other  human 
beings,  so  His  mind  advanced  also,  .  .  .  And  as  all  this  — 
everything  connected  with  His  humiliation — was  not  a  show, 
but  a  reality,  we  must  be  sure  that,  as  regards  knowledge.  His 
mind  followed  the  ordinary  law  of  the  development  of  human 
minds,  so  that  He  knew  more  at  a  later  stage  of  His  life  than  at 
an  earlier,  which  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  He  was 
ignorant  of  some  things  at  an  earlier  stage  of  His  life  which  He 
knew  at  a  later  "  (Bishop  O'Brien  op.  cit.  p.  37). 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  I  29 

And,  \vc  may  add,  the  language  of  the  Bible, 
in  the  passages  now  before  us,  does  not  suggest 
the  notion  of  some  other  all-embracing  form  of 
knowledge  held  simultaneously  in  reserve.  The 
eternal  life  of  the  Godhead  is  not  measured 
out  in  parallel  succession  to  our  days  and 
years  ;  and  in  studying  the  life  which  the 
Son  of  God  vouchsafed  to  live  in  time,  we 
need  not,  perhaps,  encumber  ourselves  with 
the  notion  of  such  a  higher  form  of  know- 
ledge accompanying  the  development  of  the 
lower,  side  by  side,  day  by  day.  The  relation 
of  the  eternal  to  the  temporal  must  remain 
for  us  unknown  at  present  ;  and  while  we 
watch  the  progress  of  the  earthly  life  of  the 
Son  of  God,  we  are  constrained  to  think  of 
Him  as  wholly  engaged  in  it.  There,  at 
Bethlehem  now,  and  now  at  Nazareth,  is  His 
centre  of  personality.  Although  it  is  \\\  virtue 
of  His  human  nature,  not  of  His  Divine  nature, 
that  the  Lord  is  the  subject  of  growth  and 
progress,  yet  it  is  He  that  advances,  and  that 
is  conscious  of  the  advance — not  some  outlying 
group     of    faculties     remotely    connected    with 

K 


1 3 O     OUR  L ORD'S  KNO IV LED GE  UPON  EARTH— 

His  real  self.  "  Jesus  advanced."  It  is  the 
very  personal  Word  of  God  Incarnate  who 
thus  passes  from  such  a  state  of  sensation,  per- 
ception, knowledge,  as  belongs  to  the  embryo, 
the  babe,  the  child,  relatively  perfect  in  each 
stage,  to  that  of  the  full-grown  man,  of  the 
complete  head  of  the  race,  "  to  the  measure  of 
the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  the  Christ." 

Having  thus  seen  that  the  knowledge  of  the 
Incarnate  Son  was  a  progressive  and  increasing 
knowledge  during  the  years  of  His  youthful  evo- 
lution, we  will  now  note  such  phrases  as  seem  to 
indicate  that,  even  in  later  days,  He  continued  — 
if  I  may  reverently  say  so — to  live  and  learn,  as 
other  men  do, — that  is,  to  pass  from  a  less  to  a 
more  complete  acquaintance  with  facts. 

It  is  worth  while,  for  example,  to  look  at 
some  of  the  many  places  in  the  Gospels,  where 
Jesus  is  said — not  (as  is  also  often  said  of  Him) 
to  "  know "  {u^ivai)  the  given  state  of  things 
— but  to  **  come  to  know,"  or  "  perceive " 
(yvwvai),  or  the  like.^ 

^  See  Westcott's   notes   on    St.    John    ii.    25,   especially  the 
Additional  Note. 


APPEARANCES   OP  LIMITATION.  131 

V  The  Pharisees  take  counsel  to  destroy  Ilim. 
At  first,  it  seems  to  be  imph'ed,  He  was  un- 
aware of  it  ;  for  "  when  Jesus  came  to  know, 
He  withdrew  Himself  from  thence."  ^  Rumours 
reach  the  Pharisees  with  regard  to  the  relative 
success  of  John  the  Baptist  and  of  our  Lord's 
disciples,  and  stir  much  discussion  among 
them.  Intelligence  of  these  discussions  is 
conveyed  to  our  Lord  :"  When,  therefore,  the 
Lord  came  to  know  that  the  Pharisees  had 
heard  that  Jesus  was  making  and  baptizing 
more  disciples  than  John,  ...  He  left  Judaea 
and  went  away  back  into  Galilee."  -  Plots, 
ostensibly  for  His  honour,  arc  formed  among 
the  five  thousand  whom  He  had  miraculously 
fed.  "Jesus,  therefore,  having  come  to  know 
that  they  were  about  to  come  and  seize  Him 
to  make  Him  king,  withdrew  again  into  the 
mountain  alone  by  Him.self."^  A  man  has 
been  bedridden  for  thirty-eight  years,  when 
one  day  our  Lord  comes  to  the  pool  by  which 
he  lies.  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  our 
Lord    went    to    the    pool     for   the    purpose    of 

'  St.  Matt.  xii.  15.         -  St.  John  iv.  i,  3.         ^  St.  John  vi.  15. 


132     OUR  L ORHS  KNO  WL ED GE  UPON  EA R TH— 

healing  him,  or  had  thought  of  him  before  ; 
but  when  He  arrived,  "Jesus,  seeing  this  man 
lie,  and  coming  to  know" — we  are  not  informed 
how,  but  perhaps  by  miraculous  insight — "  that 
he  had  now  been  a  long  time  in  that  case," 
proceeded  to  heal  him.^  j 

I  In  these  instances,  the  new  knowledge 
acquired  dictates  fresh  action  ;  in  many  others 
it  suggests  a  speech  or  a  question.  Our  Lord 
discovers  that  the  disciples  are  grossly  mis- 
interpreting a  metaphor  of  His:  "And  when 
He  came  to  know  it,  He  saith  to  them.  Why 
reason  ye  because  ye  have  no  loaves  ?  "  -  They 
are  perplexed  over  another  dark  saying  of 
His,  and  after  fruitless  discussions  among 
themselves,  reluctantly  acquiesce  in  not  under- 
standing. ("Jesus  came  to  know  that  they 
wished  to  ask  Him,  and  said  unto  them.  Do 
ye  inquire  among  yourselves  of  that  I  said  ?  "  ^/ 
When  the  scribes  murmured  at  the  absolution 
of  the  palsied  man,  "Jesus  immediately  became 
fully  aware  in  His  spirit  {^vOvg  linyvovg  roj 
irvevfxaTL  cwTov)  that  they  were  thus  reasoning 

^   St.  John  V.  6.  -  St.  Mark  viii.  17.  ^  St.  John  xvi.  19. 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  133 

among  themselves,  and  said,  Why  reason  ye 
these  things  in  your  hearts  ? "  ^  About  the 
tribute  question,  "  Jesus,  coming  to  know, 
or  perceiving  (yi'ouc),  their  wickedness,  said, 
Why  tempt  ye  Me,  ye  hypocrites  ?  "  "^  The 
disciples  murmur  at  Mary's  waste  of  ointment  : 
"Jesus,  coming  to  know  it,  said  to  them,  Why 
trouble  ye  the  woman  ? " "  Such  passages 
seem  to  show  that  our  Saviour's  knowledge  of 
things  around  Him  was,  like  ours,  discursive,/ 
coming  to  Him  at  successive  moments,  andi 
not  exhaustive  from  the  outset  and  therefore 
stationary  ;  in  other  words,  that  He  was  aware 
of  a  thing  at  one  instant,  of  which  He  was 
not  aware  the  instant  before. 

Sometimes  these  moments  at  which  our 
Lord  became  aware,  or  more  vividly  aware, 
of  a  thing  are  recorded  to  have  occasioned  in 
Him  a  rising  of  holy  passion.  All  passion 
implies  a  kind  of  access  of  knowledge  or,  at 
any  rate,  of  realisation  ;  and  a  being  to  whom 
everything  is  fully  and  unincreasably  known 
and  felt,  would  seem  to  be  thereby  precluded 

^  St.  Mark  ii.  8.         "  St.  Matt.  xxii.  18.         '  St.  Matt.  xxvi.  10. 


134     OUR  LORD'S  KNO  WLEDGE  UPON  EA R TH— 


'b 


from  passion.  Thus,  on  the  disciples  trying 
to  keep  back  the  children  from  Him,  "  When 
esus  saw  it,  He  was  indignant."  ^  When  the 
people  in  the  synagogue  maintained  an  obsti- 
nate silence,  and  would  not  answer  His  question 
about  good  works  on  the  sabbath,  "  having 
glanced  round  about  on  them  with  wrath, 
being  altogether  grieved  at  the  hardening  of 
their  heart,  He  saith  to  the  man,  Stretch  out 
thy  hand."-  Sights  and  sounds  often  affected 
Him  thus.  More  than  once  we  are  told  that 
**  coming  forth  and  seeing  a  great  multitude, 
He  was  moved  with  compassion.""  It  is  as  if 
He  had  hardly  been  prepared  for  such  a  spec- 
tacle. At  sight  of  the  widow  at  Nain,  He  was 
moved  with  compassion.^  "  When  Jesus  saw 
[Mary]  weeping,  and  the  Jews  which  came  to- 
gether with  her  weeping,  He  groaned  in  spirit" 
(with  indignant  emotion),  "  and  troubled  Him- 
self" ^  When  the  rich  young  ruler  ^  professed 
that  he  had  kept  all  the  commandments,  "  Jesus 
looked  upon  him  and  loved  him."^     When  "the 

1  St.  Mark  x.  14.        ^  g^,  ^aric  iii.  5.        ^^  St.  Matt.  xiv.  14. 
*  St.  Luke  vii.  13.       '  St.  John  xi.  33.       «  St.  Mark  x.  21. 


APPEARANCES   OF  LIMITATION.  I  35 

seventy  returned  again  with  joy,"  "  in  that  very 
hour  He  rejoiced  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  said, 
I  thank  Thee,  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth."  ^  In  the  triumphal  iMitry,  ''as  He 
drew  near,  seeing  the  city,  He  wept  over  it."  "- 
Emotions  evidently  break  forth  in  a  similar 
manner  on  other  occasions,  though  without 
the  same  explicit  mention. 

As  I  have  said,  all  movements  of  passion 
imply  the  rushing  into  the  mind  of  new 
thoughts.  They  contain  an  element  of  surprise. 
But  it  is  highly  significant  that  surprise  itself, 
in  the  form  of  wonder,  is  several  times  pre- 
dicated of  our  Saviour.  Wonder  is  the  shock, 
whether  agreeable  or  otherwise,  of  the  strange 
and  unexpected.  Wonder  is  the  result  of  a 
new  and  significant  truth  being  forced  upon 
the  consciousness,  which  cannot  all  at  once  be 
co-ordinated  with  what  was  known  or  thought 
before.  And  so  we  find  in  the  life  of  Christ 
that  He  wondered  at  some  men's  faith,  and 
at  some  men's  unbelief.  The  people  of  His 
own  country,   Nazareth,  among  whom   He  had 

'   Sl.  Luke  \.  21.  -  St.  Luke  xix.  41. 


^6    OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 


increased  in  favour  with  God  and  men,  might 
reasonably  have  been  expected  to  welcome  Him  ; 
and  "He  marvelled  at  their  unbelief."^  When 
the  Jews  on  every  side  were  looking  askance 
at  Him,  a  Gentile  officer  entreats  Him  for  a 
word  of  healing,  not  doubting  that  the  powers 
of  nature  will  obey  His  command  as  promptly  as 
soldiers  in  the  ranks  obey  their  centurion ;  *'and 
when  Jesus  heard  these  things.  He  marvelled 
at  him,  and  turning  to  the  multitude  that 
followed  Him,  He  said,  I  tell  you,  I  have  not 
found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel."^  And 
there  was  one  terrible  occasion  in  His  life  when 
wonder  became  astonishment  and  anguish. 
"}Ap^aro  EKOajuPdcrOai  kol  a^rjjULOvHv — ''  He  began 
to  be  sore  amazed  and  very  heavy."  ^  QafjijSog 
differs  from  Oavfia  both  in  excess  of  volume, 
being  an  overwhelming  degree  of  astonishment, 
and  also  as  containing  a  suggestion  of  alarm  : 
and  'KOa/Lij^HdOai  is  to  go  the  whole  length  of 
such  astonishment,  and  to  be  transported  out 
of  one's  self  by  it.  \\di]iuovHv  denotes  a  kind  of 
stupefaction  and  bewilderment,  the  intellectual 

'  St.  Mark  vi.  6.        -  St.  Luke  vii.  9.        ^  St.  Mark  xiv.  33. 


A  r PEA  RANGES  OF  LIMITATION.  I  3/ 

powers  reeling  and  staggering  under  the  pres- 
sure of  the  ideas  presented  to  them.  This  is 
what  the  Lord  vouchsafed  to  undergo.  The 
transition  from  imagination  beforehand  to  actual 
experience  was  more  than  He  could  well  bear, 
and  He  felt  that  it  was  killing  Him.  '*My  soul 
is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto  death."  It 
took  away  His  spiritual  breath,  so  that  His 
very  prayers  in  those  long  hours  in  the  Garden 
were  but  broken  ejaculations,  again  and  again 
repeated,  "  saying  the  same  words."  Although 
He  had  come  into  the  world  for  the  very 
purpose  of  bearing  sin  ;  although  He  had  long 
lived  on  earth  among  sinners,  and  feeling  the 
hatefulness  of  their  sins  ;  although  He  had 
had  foretastes  and  anticipations  of  Gethsemane 
itself,  as  when  He  cried,  "  Now  is  My  soul 
troubled,  and  what  shall  I  say  ?  "  ^  yet,  when 
the  hour  came,  it  exceeded  all  His  expecta- 
tions. The  sensation  of  having  sin — all  sin — 
laid  upon  Him  as  His  own  burden  now  dis- 
mayed and  appalled  Him,  and  made  Him 
entreat,  as  we  may  well  believe  that    He    had 

'   St.  John  xii.  27. 


138     OUR  LORD'S  KNO  WLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

never  before  entreated,  that,  if  it  were  possible, 
the  cup  might  pass  from  Him.  And  as  that 
most  awful  prayer  indicates  that  He  had  not 
fully  realised  beforehand  what  He  was  then 
experiencing,  so  also  it  seems  to  imply  that 
even  then  He  was  not  absolutely  certain  of  the 
future.  He  could  hardly  have  prayed,  "  If  it  be 
possible,"  with  that  reiteration  and  at  such 
length,  and  with  so  heart-piercing  an  appeal, 
if  it  had  been  clear  to  Him  all  the  time  that 
there  was  positively  no  other  way. 
f  Our  Blessed  Lord  appears,  then,  to  have 
gone  on  acquiring  knowledge  during  His  life 
upon  earth.  And  we  may  reverently  ask,  by 
what  means  that  knowledge  was  gained.  To 
this  question  different  answers  will  naturally 
have  to  be  given,  according  to  the  different 
departments  of  knowledge.  >  We  will  only 
touch  at  present  upon  those  incidents  in 
His  life  where  He  appears  to  gather  know- 
ledge by  the  same  methods  which  are  open  to 
all  men. 

Many  things   He  knew  by  personal  observa- 
tion.   ("Jesus,  seeing  their  faith,  said  unto  the 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  139 

sick  of   the  palsy."  1     "Seeing    the    multitudes, 
He    was     moved    with    compassion    for    them, 
because   they  were   agitated   and   tossed   about, 
like  sheep   that  have  no   shepherd.""     "Seeing 
them    grievously  distressed  in    rowing    (for  the 
wind    was    against    them),    about    the    fourth 
watch  of  the   night.   He  cometh  unto    them."  ^ 
"  Peter    took    Him    unto    him,    and    began    to 
rebuke   Him  ;  but   He,  turning   and  seeing  His 
disciples,  rebuked  Peter."  ^     "Jesus,  seeing  him 
that  he  answered  discreetly,  said  to  him.  Thou 
art  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God."  ^    "  While 
He   was  yet  speaking,  there   came   some  from 
the  ruler  of  the  synagogue's  house  saying,  Thy 
daughter    is    dead  ;    why    troublest    thou    the 
Rabbi  any  further  ?     But  Jesus,  overhearing  the 
word   as   it  was  uttered  (/rapa/coudac  tov  X0701' 
XaXoiV^i'oiO,  saith.  Fear  not."*^    Examples  of  such 
observation  might  be  multiplied. 

But  there  were  other  things  which  our  Lord 
learned  by  the  information  of  others.  "  Hearing 
that    John  was  delivered    up,    He    retired    into 

1  St.  Malt.  ix.  2.         -  St.  Matt.  ix.  36.         '  St.  Mark  vi.  4S. 
St.  Mark  viii.  32.      '•>  St.  Mark  xii.  34-        "  ^t.  Mark  v.  36. 


/ 


I40    OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH — 

Galilee."  ^  "  His  disciples  took  up  the  body 
and  buried  him,  and  went  and  informed  Jesus. 
And  when  Jesus  heard  it,  He  retired  thence."^ 
"Jesus  heard  that  they  had  cast  him  out;  and 
found  him,  and  said,  Dost  thou  believe  in  the 
Son  of  Man  ?  "  ^  "  They  sent  unto  Him,  saying. 
Lord,  he  whom  Thou  lovest  is  sick.  .  .  . 
When,  therefore,  He  heard  that  he  was  sick. 
He  then  abode  two  days  in  the  place  where 
He  was."  ^ 

These  occasions  on  which  our  Lord  is  said  to 
have  learned  facts  by  being  told  them,  lead  us 
on  to  inquire  whether  He  ever  sought  to  ascertain 
facts  by  such  means.  The  questions  of  Christ 
afford  a  singularly  instructive  field  for  study. 
As  was  natural  in  a  life  of  full  and  busy  inter- 
course with  men,  our  Lord  asked  many  ques- 
tions ;  and  those  which  are  recorded  are  asked 
in  various  tones,  and  for  various  reasons. 

The  greater  number  of  our  Lord's  questions 
in  the  Gospels  are  plainly  dialectical.  Like 
other   great    teachers.    He   was   wont   to   draw 

*  St.  Matt.  iv.  12.  2  st_  ]y[att.  xiv.  12  foil. 

^  St.  John  ix.  35.  ^  St.  John  xi.  3,  6. 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  141 

men  out,  and  to  lead  them  on,  from  what 
they  acknowledged,  to  the  rightful  deductions. 
Examples  of  such  dialectical  questions,  where 
plainly  the  Lord  had  no  need  to  learn,  but 
only  wished  to  test,  are  the  following :  "  Whose 
is  this  image  and  superscription?"^  ''Whom 
do  men  say  that  I,  the  Son  of  Man,  am  ?  .  .  . 
but  whom  say  ye  that  I  am  ?  "  ^  "  Of  whom  do 
the  kings  of  the  earth  take  tribute  ?  of  their 
own  children,  or  of  strangers  ?  "  ^  "  The  baptism 
of  John,  was  it  from  heaven,  or  of  men  ? "  ^ 
"  What  think  ye  concerning  the  Christ  ?  whose 
son  is  he?  .  .  .  How,  then,  doth  David  in  the 
Spirit  call  him  Lord?"''  *'When  I  sent  you 
forth  without  purse  and  scrip  and  shoes,  lacked 
ye  anything  ?  "  '■ 

Some  of  this  class  of  questions  are  even  more 
rhetorical  than  dialectical,  and  indicate  some 
degree  of  suprise  or  indignation  ;  such  as,  "  Art 
thou  a  master  of  Israel,  and  knowest  not  these 
things  ?  "  ^      "  Did   ye    never    read   what    David 

'  St.  Matt.  xxii.  20.  -  St.  Matt.  xvi.  13  foil. 

^  St.  Matt.  xvii.  25.  ^  St.  Matt.  xxi.  25. 

"  St.  Matt.  xxii.  42  foil.  '•  St.  Luke  xxii.  35. 

•   St.  John  iii.  10. 


142     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

did,  when  he  was  an  hungred  ?  "  ^  "  He  looked 
upon  them,  and  said,  What,  then,  is  this  which 
is  written,  The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected, 
the  same  is  become  the  headstone  in  the 
corner  ?  "  ^  "  Were  there  not  ten  cleansed  ? 
and  where  are  the  nine  ? "  ^  "  Simon,  sleepest 
thou  ?  couldest  thou  not  watch  with  Me  one 
hour?"^ 

In  these  places  our  Lord  is  evidently  asking 
without  any  purpose  of  seeking  information ; 
but  there  is  a  class  of  questions  occupying  de- 
batable ground,  where  it  would  be  natural,  in 
the  case  of  any  other  than  our  Lord,  to  suppose 
the  question  to  be  asked  for  information's  sake, 
but  where,  in  His  case,  we  may  legitimately 
seek  some  other  interpretation,  and  may  find 
one  without  much  difficulty.  St.  Athanasius 
instances  one  or  two  of  these  as  a  sign  that 
our  Lord  had  adopted  all  the  sinless  infirmities 
of  our  limited  nature.  The  Arians,  he  says,  are 
like  the  Jews,  and  keep  saying,  "  How  can  He 
be  the  Word,  or  God,  who,  like  a  man,  sleeps, 


1  St.  Matt.  xii.  3.  ^  St.  Luke  xx.  17. 

^  St.  Luke  xvii.  17.  ^  St.  Mark  xiv.  37 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION,  1 43 


and  weeps,  and  asks  questions  ?  "  ^  "  l^oth 
[Jews  and  Arians],"  he  continues,  "  arguing 
from  the  human  conditions  to  which  the 
Saviour  submitted  because  of  the  flesh  which 
He  had,  deny  the  eternity  and  Godhead  of 
the  Word." 

One  of  the  questions  which  St.  Athanasius  thus 
regards  as  asked  by  the  Saviour  for  His  human 
information  is  the  question  to  the  friends  of 
Lazarus,  "  Where  have  ye  laid  him  ?  "  -  The 
eleventh  chapter  of  St.  John  is  indeed  a  marvel- 
lous weaving  together  of  that  which  is  natural 
and  that  which  is  above  nature.  Jesus  learns 
from  others  that  Lazarus  is  sick,  but  knows  { 
without  any  further  message  that  Lazarus  is 
dead.  He  weeps  and  groans  at  the  sight  of 
the  sorrow  which  surrounds  Him,  yet  calmly 
gives  thanks  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
miracle  before  it  has  been  accomplished.  In 
these  circumstances,  although  there  would  be 
nothing  derogatory  to  the  Lord's  dignity  in 
ascertaining  by  inquiry  the  simple  matter  of 
fact,  as  St.  Athanasius  supposed  that   He  did. 

'  Ath.  c.  Ariafi.  Or.  iii.  457.  «  St.  John  xi.  34. 


1 44     OUR  LORD  S  KNO  WLEDGE  UPON  EARTH- 


yet  perhaps  He  was  but  using  a  natural  form 
of  speech  equivalent  to  an  invitation  to  go  with 
Him  to  the  grave. 

The  same  kind  of  doubt  hangs  around  such 
questions  as  that  addressed  to  the  blind  men 
who  asked  for  healing,  "  Believe  ye  that  I 
am  able  to  do  this  ? "  ^  as  though  He  were  not 
fully  satisfied  that  the  rightful  conditions  for 
healing  were  present ;  or  to  that  other  blind 
man    who    was    healed    by   successive    stages  ; 

!  "  He  asked  him  if  he  saw  aught/'  ^  —  as 
though  in  a  case  where  faith  was  apparently  so 
imperfect,  our  Lord  proceeded  tentatively,  and 
wished  to  make  sure  of  one  step  before  He  took 
another.  So,  in  a  course  of  instruction  to  the 
disciples,  he  tentatively  asks,  "  Have  ye  under- 

I  stood  all  these  things  ? "  ^  before  closing  the 
lesson.  The  questions,  however,  may  have  been 
asked  only  for  the  sake  of  the  blind  men,  or  of 
the  disciples  themselves.  Take,  again,  the  ques- 
tions to  the  father  of  the  demoniac  child,  and 
to  the  crowd  assembled  under  the  mountain  of 
Transfiguration.     "  What  reason  ye  with  them 

»  St.  MaU.  ix.  28.     2  St.  Mark  viii.  23.     =»  St.  Matt.  xiii.  51. 


APPEARANCES   OF  LIMITATION.  [45 


{it\  with  the  disciples)  ?  "  ^     "  How  long  a  time  ^ 
is  it  since  this  hath  been  the  case  with  him?"- 
The  first  question   may  be  but  an  obvious  way 
of  opening-  communications,  the  second  of  ex- 
pressing sympathy  ;  though  they  look  as  if  they 
might    mean   more.     Jesus    says   to  the  raving 
man  near  Gerasa,  "  What  is  thy  name  ?  "  ^  pos-  ^ 
sibly,  in  part,  because  it  was  an  obvious  way  of 
finding  out ;  but,  doubtless,  much  more  because 
it  brought  the  poor  man  back  to  his  true  self, 
and  was  a  first  step  to  ridding  him  of  the  con- 
fusion   of    his    distracted    personality.      "How 
many  loaves  have   ye.?"^     The   exact  number 
was  practically  unimportant   to   Him  ;  and   the 
addition,  "  Go  and  see,"  seems  to  make  it  clear 
that  the  main  object  of  the  interrogation  was  to 
impress  the   disciples'   minds;    but   Christ   may 
have    been    interested    to    learn,— and    this    is 
another  of  the  questions  adduced  by  St.  Atha- 
nasius  as   exemplifying   His   human   method  of 
gaining  knowledge.     "  Woman,  where  are  those 
thine     accusers  ?     hath     no     man     condemned 

*  St.  Mark  ix.  16.  -  St.  Mark  ix.  21. 

^  St.  Mark  V.  9.  ^  St.  Mark  vi.38. 

L 


146     OUR  lord's  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

thee?"-^  appears  in  like  manner  intended  to 
impress  the  woman's  mind  ;  but  it  at  least 
suggests  some  measure  of  surprise  on  the  part 
of  our  Lord.  "What  was  it  that  ye  disputed 
by  the  way  ?  "  ^  is  designed  to  elicit  a  confession  ; 
but  there  is  additional  point  in  it,  if  we  might 
suppose  that  He  who  one  day  (as  we  have  seen) 
"overheard"  a  remark  in  the  crowd,  had,  on 
this  journey,  observed  an  eager  dispute,  and 
had  surmised  that  there  was  evil  in  it,  but  had 
not  applied  Himself  at  the  moment  to  appre- 
hend the  precise  point  of  it.  When  He  says 
to  the  mother  of  Zebedee's  children,  *'  What 
wilt  thou  }  "  ^  it  is  an  invitation  to  make  known 
her  request  ;  but  if  it  be  ever  allowable  to 
suppose  that  Jesus  was  not  aware  of  the  answer 
before  He  asked  a  question,  it  would  be  allow- 
able here.  His  emotion  at  her  reply,  and  His 
statement  that  the  granting  of  her  request  did 
not  lie  in  His  personal  option,  tend  rather  to 
that  view  than  to  the  opposite. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  in  the  questions  which 
we  have  just  considered,  our  Lord  is,  at  any  rate 

"'  St.  John  viii.  10.       -    St.  Mark  ix.  33.       •'  St.  Matt.  xx.  20. 


AFPEARANCES   OF  LIMI rATlON.  1 47 


in  part,  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the  state  of  the 
case  in  the  same  kind  of  way  as  we  do,  making 
Himself  beholden  to  others  for  telling  Him. 
Init  there  r^ain  a  few  instances  in  which  I 
cannot  doubt  that  the  question,  spoken  or 
implied,  denotes  that  the  Divine  questioner  was 
not  beforehand  in  full  possession  of  the  facts. 

The  earliest  recorded  words  of  Jesus  form  a 
question,  and  a  question  of  surprise  and  per- 
plexity. How  is  it  that  ye  sought  Me?  Wist 
ye  not  that  I  must  be  in  My  Father's  house  ? "  ^ 
The  whole  incident  is  one  which  reveals  to  us  our 
Saviour's  perfect  accommodation  of  Himself  to 
the  conditions  of  true  and  simple  childhood.  It 
is  well-nigh  impossible  to  believe  that  He  knew 
that  Joseph  and  Mary  were  leaving  Jerusalem, 
that  He  knew  them  to  be  unaware  of  His  tarry- 
ing behind,  that  He  knew  the  sorrow  which  they 
were  experiencing  in  searching  for  Him^  and 
that  He  deliberately  did  what  He  did,  for  the 
express  purpose  of  teaching  them  a  lesson.  Such 
a  notion  would  seem  to  turn  the  exquisite  narra- 
tive of  St.  Luke  into  an  uncdifying  and  almost  a 

'   Si.  Luke  ii.  49. 


1 4S     O  UK  L  OKB'S  KNO I VLED GE  UPON  EA R  TH— 


repulsive  incident.  St.  Luke's  language  is  as  far 
from  suggesting  such  a  view  as  it  is  from  suggest- 
ing that  the  Holy  Child  sat  among  the  doctors 
consciously  to  instruct  and  not  to  learn.  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  one  who  read  these 
verses  without  a  theological  prepossession, 
would  say  that  by  some  blameless  accident, 
arranged  in  the  providence  of  God,  the  parents 
had  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Holy  Child  knew 
of  the  time  for  the  starting  of  the  caravan,  and 
to  suppose  that  He  was  actually  in  it  when  He 
was  not ;  and  that  He  for  His  part — we  may 
not  say  thought  them  to  be  still  in  Jerusalem, 
for  that  would  imply  a  definite  error,  which 
would  be  altogether  unnecessary,  and  which 
nothing  in  the  Bible  would  justify — but  was  as 
unconscious  of  their  starting  as  if  they  had 
started  while  He  was  asleep.  How  soon  He 
became  aware  of  the  fact  we  are  not  told, 
but  doubtless  very  soon  ;  and  His  astonished 
question  seems,  not  to  mean  that  He  had 
expected  them  to  know  that  it  was  His  duty 
to  stay  at  Jerusalem,  but  rather  that  He  had 
expected  them,  on  discovering  their  loss,  to  come 


APPEARANCES   OF  /JAflTATIO.V.  1 49 

straight  for  I  Urn  to  the  Temple— to  the  natural 
spot,  from  which,  in  Mis  thoughtfulness,  Me  had 
not  stirred  under  any  influence  of  fear.  "  How 
is  it  that  ye  so?ight  Me?  Wist  ye  not  that  I 
was  bound  to  be  in  My  Father's  house  ?  "  He 
was  as  yet  a  stranger  upon  earth,  and  its  ways, 
even  in  the  actions  of  the  saints,  were  a  per- 
plexity to  Him.  He  could  not  make  them  out. 
Another  instance  is  that  of  the  extraordinary 
miracle  of  the  woman  with  an  issue  of  blood. 
She  came  with  the  intention  of  obtaining,  if 
possible,  a  cure  by  stealth.  She  had  no  desire, 
as  it  seems,  to  enter  into  any  personal  relations 
with  our  Lord,  but  to  draw  off  a  healing  virtue 
from  Him  as  by  a  magical  process.  And  she 
gained  her  wish.  There  seems,  from  the  account, 
to  have  been  no  exertion  of  will  on  our  Lord's 
part  to  effect  the  cure.  If  we  are  to  understand 
the  words  of  the  Gospel  literally,  He  only  per- 
ceived that  some  one  had  been  healed  by  an 
inward  sensation  of  having  given  off  virtue. 
St.  Mark's  language  is  very  remarkable  :  "  And 
Jesus  immediately  becoming  well  aware  in  Him- 
self (tTrr/rouc   Iv   iavTio)    of  the  virtue  in    Him 


150     OUR  LORD'S  KNO  WLED GE  UPON  EA R TH— 

having  gone  out  (->)v  tj  cwrov  Svvcijuliv  a^bXOovaav 
I  — not  rriv  EE,e\6ov(jav  fcs  avrov  8wvo/.(tv)."  Who  it 
was  that  had  been  healed  He  did  not  know, 
although  He  felt  that  it  had  been  done  by  a 
touch — according  to  St.  Mark's  graphic  account, 
that  it  had  been  done  by  a  touch  of  His  clothes. 
"  He  turned  in  the  crowd  and  said,"  perhaps 
y  said  more  than  once  (eX^yev),  "  Who  touched  My 
clothes  ? "  ^  In  spite  of  the  denials  and  the 
wondering  expostulations  of  Peter  and  the 
disciples,  He  persisted.  "  Somebody  touched 
Me,"  He  said,  according  to  St.  Luke ;  ^  '*  I 
felt  virtue  gone  out  of  Me  (h/viov  ^vvufiiv 
t^^XilXvOvTav)  ;"  and  "He  kept  looking  round 
about  (TrEpufdXETrero)  to  see  the  woman  that  had 
done  this.'9  It  is  almost  impossible  to  suppose 
that  all  this  animated  and  prolonged  investi- 
gation was  only  a  piece  of  instructive  acting,  in 
order  to  compel  the  woman  to  declare  herself. 
There  were  indeed  occasions  when  our  Saviour 
used  a  holy  pretence.  "  He  meant  to  pass  by 
them  (i]9eXEv  iraptXOelv  avrovg),"  ^  when  He 
walked  on  the  sea ;  "He  feigned  to  be  travelling 

^  viii.  46.  •  St.  Mark  v.  30.  ^  St.  Mark  vi.  48. 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  151 

further  ( 7r/>oat7ron'/n-«-(>),"  ^  when  He  came  with 
His  fellow-travellers  to  Enimaus.  But  in  the 
case  before  us,  not  only  is  there  nothing  to 
indicate  that  our  Lord  was  feigning  ignorance, 
— what  is  said  of  the  means  by  which  He  per- 
ceived the  cure  to  have  been  effected  points 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  ignorance  (such  as  it 
was)  was  real. 

Another  case  where  it  is  hard  to  suppose  our 
Lord  to  have  been  feigning,  is  the  incident 
of  the  Barren  Fig-tree.  Our  Lord  was  really 
hungry.  From  a  distance  He  saw^  "one  fig  tree  " 
covered  with  leaves  amidst  the  bare,  pale  stems 
of  the  rest.  From  its  forward  condition  it 
seemed  to  offer  a  promise  of  fruit.  Our  Lord 
asked  no  question  ;  there  would  have  been  no 
one  to  answ^er  it ;  but  His  conduct  contained  a 
question.  He  moved  towards  the  tree  with  an 
inquiring  gaze — possibly  with  a  touch  of  surprise 
that  any  fig  tree  should,,  so  early  in  the  season, 
be  so  advanced-U"  He  went  to  it,  a  a'loa  ti  ^vfniau 
iv  avTi^i  to  see  if  He  should  indeed  find  any- 
thing upon  it."  ^  That  every  point  in  the 
'  St.  Luke  xxiv.  2S.  =  St.  Mark  xi.  n. 


152     OUR  L ORD'S  KNO  WLED GE  UPON  EAR TH— 


incident  was  Divinely  purposed,  in  order  to 
bring  out  a  great  spiritual  lesson,  cannot  be 
doubted  ;  but  the  reality  of  our  Lord's  hunger 
appears  to  show  that  His  uncertainty  as  to  the 
means  of  satisfying  it  was  real  also.  If  He  only 
pretended  not  to  know  that  the  tree  was  barren, 
we  should  expect  the  hunger  also  to  have  been 
pretended  ;  but  an  actual  hunger  does  not  match 
so  well  with  a  symbolical  quest  of  nutriment. 

There  is  only  one  other  question  of  the 
Blessed  Lord's  on  which  I  will  now  speak.  It 
was  the  last  question  of  His  earthly  life,  and 
it  was  the  most  tremendous.  His  first  recorded 
question  denoted  perplexity  at  the  ways  of 
men  ;  His  last  denotes  a  more  dreadful  per- 
plexity at  the  ways  of  God.  Into  the  whole 
mystery  of  that  cry  ^ — the  strangest  that  ever 
passed  the  lips  of  man — we  need  not  now  enter. 
How  our  sins  were  laid  upon  Him,  and  made 
His  own,  and  felt  by  Him  in  such  a  way  that 
He  was  not  able  to  look  up  ;  how  it  was 
possible  for  the  Son  of  God  to  feel  Himself 
forsaken  by  His  Father — that  Father  of  whom 
^  St.  Matt,  xxvii.  46  :  "  Eli,  Eli,  lama  sabachthani  ?  " 


APPEARANCES  OF  LIMITATION.  I  53 

He  had  said  so  confidently,  a  short  while  before, 
to  Ills  disciples,  "Ye  shall  be  scattered  every 
one  to  his  own,  and  shall  leave  Me  alone  ;  and 
yet  I  am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with 
Me  "  ^ — this  may  devoutly  be  studied  at  another 
time.  But  what  concerns  us  to-day  is  to  see  that 
the  question  is  a  real  question,  not  a  rhetorical 
question.  It  expresses — who  can  doubt  it  ? — a 
longing  on  Christ's  part  for  some  light  of  under- 
standing to  illuminate  the  dreadful  bewilderment 
in  which  He  finds  Himself.  It  shows  that  He 
knew  by  experience,  as  we  do,  what  it  is  to 
challenge  the  dealings  of  God,  and  to  expostulate 
with  them, — to  feel  that  He  is  in  ''a  land  of 
darkness,  as  darkness  itself,  and  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  without  any  order,  and  where  the 
light  is  as  darkness."  His  "  why  "  is  as  real 
a  "why"  as  ours.  Even  if  He,  as  is  often  the 
case  with  us,  could  give  a  verbal  answer  to  His 
own  question,  yet  the  answer  seems  to  leave 
the  heart  of  the  difficulty  untouched.  In  view 
of  this  piercing  "  why,"  it  seems  unnecessary  to 
imagine    some   solitary  items    here    and    there, 

'  St.  John  xvi.  32, 


154     OUR   LORD'S   KNOWLEDGE    UPON  EARTH. 


designedly  excluded  from  an  otherwise  absolute 
and  exhaustive  understanding  of  all  things. 
It  shows  us  that  there  was  one  hour,  one  three 
hours,  in  the  life  of  the  Incarnate  God  when 
everything  seemed  to  go  from  Him  except  trust 
in  "  His  God  ; "  and  there  is  no  other  hour  in 
His  life  of  which  the  record  so  bows  us  in 
adoration  at  the  feet  of  "  Jesus,  Divinest  when 
He  most  is  Man."  ^ 

'  Myers'  Saint  PauL 


LECTURE   V. 

OUR  lord's  knowledge  upon  earth — 
ITS  transcendence. 

In  my  last  lecture  we  considered  the  appear- 
ances of  limitation  in  our  Redeemer's  knowledge 
while  He  was  upon  earth,  as  indicated  in  the 
Gospels.  uVe  saw  some  reasons  for  concluding 
that  it  was  not,  from  His  conception  to  the  Cross, 
an  unvarying,  exhaustive,  all-comprising  acquaint- 
ance with  all  facts,  great  and  small,  in  all  their 
bearings  ;  but  that  it  was  a  progressive  know- 
ledge, as  ours  is,  beginning  with  less,  and  ad- 
vancing to  more,  by  observation  and  reflexion, 
and  by  information  received  from  others,  as  well 
as  by  other  means  ;  and  that  there  were  things 
which  He  perceived  for  the  first  time,  and  things 
which  caused  Him  surprise  and  perplexity, 
sometimes  even  an  anguish  of  perplexity. 


156     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH — 

But  we  have,  to-day,  to  enter  upon  the  larger 
subject,  not  of  the  Hmitations,  but  of  the  ex- 
tent of  Christ's  knowledge ;  and,  where  that 
knowledge  exceeds  the  usual  bounds  of  human 
knowledge,  we  may  endeavour  to  see  whether 
Holy  Scripture  gives  us  any  information  as  to 
its  sources. 

The  Bible,  which  was  written  for  our  learning, 
but  not  to  satisfy  our  curiosity,  does  not  tell  us 
how  far  our  Blessed  Lord  was  acquainted  with 
facts  such  as  those  of  natural  science  or  of 
secular  history  ;  and  we  could  only  guess  one 
way  or  the  other,  if  we  cared  to  do  so.  His 
language  about  the  lilies  and  the  sparrows,  His 
parables  of  the  Sower,  the  Mustard-seed,  and 
others,  show  Him,  as  was  to  be  expected,  to 
have  had  a  thoughtful  and  devout  eye  for  the 
visible  creation  ;  and  the  more  scientifically 
nature  is  studied,  the  more  richly  suggestive  does 
our  Lord's  parabolic  teaching  appear :  but  there 
is  no  proof  that  He  had  applied  His  human 
mind  to  the  examination  of  the  laws  of  science. 
The  absence  of  evidence  leaves  it  open  for  us 
to  think  either  way.     The  reference  to  the  fall 


ITS  TRANSCENDENCE:  157 


of  the  tower  in  Siloam  is,  so  far  as  I  remember, 
His  only  recorded  mention  of  a  public  event  in 
the  past,  outside  of  His  own  circle  of  observation 
on  the  one  hand,  or  of  Scripture  history  on  the 
other.  That  there  were  in  that  perfect  human 
nature  capacities  and  tastes  for  scientific  study 
and  learned  research  cannot  be  questioned,  as 
well  as  for  music  and  art,  and  every  other 
wholesome  pursuit  in  which  men  delight ;  but 
to  give  time  and  attention  to  these  would  have 
interfered  with  the  main  purpose  of  His  life, 
and  it  would  seem,  that  He  sacrificed  them.^ 
(  But  while  we  are  not  informed  on  the  points 
which  I  have  named,  we  have  plentiful  proof 
that  Christ  had  knowledge  of  facts  which  no 
ordinary  study  could  have  ascertained  ;  and 
first,  in  the  present,  external  order.  The 
miracle  of  the  fish  with  the  stater  in  his  mouth 
was  such  a  miracle  of  knowledge,  rather  than  a 
miracle  of  power.  It  was  curious,  but  not 
necessarily  miraculous,  that  a  fish  in  the  lake 
should  have  swallowed  a  stater.  It  was  a  strik- 
ing instance  of  the   Divine  Providence,  though 

'   St.  Joliii  V.  30;  cp.  Godct  Etudes  Bibliqucs  ii.  p.  100. 


I  5 S     OUR  LOIxD'S  KNO IVLED GE  UPON  EA R TH- 


not  perhaps  the  direct  act  of  Christ  Himself, 
that  that  particular  fish  should  take  St.  Peter's 
hook,  and  at  that  juncture.  The  miraculous 
thing  was,  that  our  Lord  should  know  the  very 
fishes  walking  in  the  paths  of  the  sea,  and 
should  be  able  to  say  that  that  fish  would  be 
the  first  on  St.  Peter's  line.  And  in  immediate 
contact  with  that  miracle  of  knowledge  was 
another.  The  conversation  between  the  tribute- 
collectors  and  St.  Peter  took  place  when  Jesus 
was  not  present.  It  was  somewhat  rash  of  St, 
Peter  to  pledge  his  Master  to  the  payment. 
"  And  when  he  "  (that  is,  St.  Peter)  "  came  into 
the  house"  (where  Jesus  was),  "Jesus  anticipated 
him  (7rpot(/)0aa(:y  ctwroy)  ; "  He  did  not  wait  for 
St.  Peter  to  explain  what  he  had  done ;  He 
knew  it  already.  After  showing  that  He  and 
His  disciples  were  under  no  obligations  of 
ransom  to  the  house  of  His  Father,  He  pointed 
him  to  this  means  of  acquitting  the  supposed 
obligation  for  the  sake  of  giving  no  scandal  ; 
"That  take  and  give  them  instead  of  Me  and 
thee." -^     So  loftily  did  He  reassure  His  disciples 

1  St.  Vlz.\X.  xvii.  24  foil. 


JTS   TRANSCENDENCE.  I  59 


again,   after   Mis   second   announcement    of   the 
approaching  Passion. 

[In  the  same  supernatural  \va>',  if  I  rightly 
understand,  and  not  b\'  previous  arrangement, 
our  Lord  tells  His  two  disciples  of  the  tied  ass 
and  her  unridden  colt  at  Bethphage,  and  of  the 
man  bearing  the  pitcher  of  water  in  the  cit\-. 
The  owner  of  the  asses  and  the  good-man  of 
the  house  were,  I  doubt  not.  known  to  the 
Lord,  if  not  to  the  Apostles,  as  believers  ;  but 
there  is  no  sign  of  anything  having  been 
preconcerted  with  them — rather  the  contrary — 
with  regard  to  the  use  of  the  animals  and 
of  the  chamber.  And  yet,  in  either  case,  the 
supernatural  knowledge  displayed  by  our  Lord 
is  accompanied  by  phenomena  which  carry  us 
back  to  what  w^e  were  reviewing  in  my  last 
lecture.  Our  Lord  has  no  doubt  that  the 
owners  of  the  eisses  will  acquiesce,  if  the 
disciples  have  need  to  make  their  imperious 
demand  ;  He  speaks  as  though  it  were  not  certain 
whether  it  would  be  necessary  to  make  it. 
"If  any  man  say  unto  you.  Why  do  ye  this.? 
say  ye  that  the  Lord   hath   need   of  him  ;  and 


1 6o     OUR  L ORHS  KNO  WLE D GE  UPON  EA R TH-~ 


straightway  he  will  send  him  hither."  ^  In  the 
other  case,  our  Lord's  expression  of  relief  and 
of  delight  on  entering  the  Upper  Chamber — 
"  With  desire  I  desired  to  eat  this  passover  with 
you  before  I  suffered  "  ^ — may  perhaps  be  taken 
as  a  sign  that  He  had  not  been  wholly  free 
from  anxiety  lest  the  preparations  made 
secretly  should  be  interrupted  by  the  treachery 
of  Judas,  j 

There  are  many  instances  also  of  His  super- 
natural knowledge  of  facts  in  the  lives  of  men. 
He  sees  a  poor  widow  casting  two  mites  into 
the  treasury  ;  and  with  admiration  and  pleasure 
He  summons  His  disciples  to  look  at  the  woman 
— more  worthy  of  attention  than  all  those 
magnificent  structures  at  which,  a  moment 
after,  they  in  their  turn  ask  Him  to  look.  He 
tells  them  that  her  gift  is  more  than  that  of 
all  the  rich  men,  for  that  she  had  "cast  in 
everything  that  she  had,  even  all  her  living."^ 
Though  occupied  with  His  own  trial  before 
the  High  Priest,  and  probably  out  of  earshot 
of  what  was  taking  place  among  the  servants 

^  St.  Matt.  xxi.  3.      -  St.  Luke  xxii.  15.      ^  St.  Mark  xii.  44. 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  l6l 

at  the  fire,  the  Lord's  turn  and  the  Lord's  look 
showed  that  He  was  aware  of  St.  Peter's  fall, 
and  understood  his  feelings.^  ^St.  John's  Gospel 
adds  four  or  five  such  examples.  Christ  sees 
Nathanael  under  the  fig  tree — not  with  the  bodily 
eye — and  discerns  and  discloses  the  subject  of 
his  meditations,  and  reads  his  character  from 
them.'-^  He  unveils  certain  passages  in  the 
history  of  the  Samaritan  woman,  in  one  pointed 
sentence,  so  accurately,  that  she  says  with  little 
exaggeration,  "  He  told  me  all  things  that  ever 
I  did."  ^  He  perceived,  probably  by  a  super- 
natural insight,  that  the  impotent  man  at 
Bethesda  had  lain  a  long  time  in  that  case.^ 
Far  removed  from  the  respective  scenes,  He 
announced  to  the  disciples,  "Lazarus  is  dead,"  ^ 
and  to  the  anxious  courtier,  "  Thy  son  liveth."  ^ 
Several  of  the  incidents  already  mentioned 
disclose  a  knowledge  of  things  not  only  past  and 
present,  but  also  in  the  near  future.  Accord- 
ingly, we  find  our  Lord  not  unfrequently  else- 
where   declaring    particular    events,  external  to 

'  St.  Luke  xxii.  6i.    -  St.  John  i.  48.    ^  gj_  ^^-^n  iv.  29. 
'   St.  John  V.  6.       •'  St.  John  xi.  14.    "  St.  John  iv.  50. 


1 62     OUR  L  ORD'S  KNO  WLED  GE  UPON  EAR  TIT— 

His  own  life,  before  they  occur.  He  foretells 
[in  detail  the  denial  of  St.  Peter ;  He  foretells, 
and  has  long  foreseen,  the  treachery  of  Judas  ; 
He  foresees  every  horror  of  the  siege  and  of  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem.  I  do  not  class  among 
these  phenomena  His  utterance  about  Mary's 
anointing  Him  at  Bethany  ^  (which  is  often 
treated  as  an  example  of  a  prediction  verified) 
because  that  was  of  the  nature  of  a  promise 
rather  than  a  prophecy,  and  it  was  His  saying 
that  her  action  should  be  told  which  caused  it 
to  be  told. 

Before  we  go  further,  however,  it  is  necessary 
to  say — in  view  of  criticisms  that  may  be 
offered — that  up  to  this  point  we  have  seen  no 
supernatural  knowledge  in  our  Lord  to  which 
analogies  may  not  be  found  in  the  lives  of 
/other  men.  Samuel  tells  Saul  of  the  finding  of 
his  father's  asses  while  at  a  distance,  and 
predicts  to  him  in  detail  the  incidents  of  his 
journey  home.  Elisha,  whose  miraculous  career 
/in  so  many  points  resembles  our  Lord's,  can 
tell,  in  the  hyperbolical  language  of  the  Syrian 
'  '  St.  Matt.  xxvi.  13. 


J7S   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 63 


courtiers,  the  words  which  the  kini^  speaks  in 
his  bedchamber.  His  heart  goes  with  Gehazi  on 
his  stealthy  errand,  and  detects  every  movement 
in  the  transaction  with  Naaman.  He  announces 
beforehand  the  raising  of  the  siege  of  Samaria, 
and  the  victories  of  Israel  in  the  valley  of 
Edom,  and  in  Aphek.  The  blind  Ahijah 
discerns  the  wife  of  Jeroboam  before  she  knocks 
at  his  door.  The  secret  sin  of  David  is  known 
to  the  prophet  Nathan.  There  is  no  indication 
that  I  am  aware  of,  that  our  Lord's  supernatural 
knowledge  in  things  of  this  nature  differed  in 
kind  from  that  of  the  prophets  ;  or  from  that  - 
of  St.  Peter,  when  he  detected  the  sin  of 
Ananias  and  Sapphira,  or  of  St.  Paul  when  he 
foretold  the  fortunes  of  the  vessel  on  which  he 
sailed,  or  of  Agabus  when  he  foretold  the 
famine  of  Jerusalem  and  the  binding  of  St. 
Paul's  hands  and  feet.  That  our  Lord's  know- 
ledge in  such  matters  greatly  exceeded  that 
of  others  is  evident ;  but  we  cannot  say  with 
certainty  from  the  phenomena  themselves  that 
it  came  to  Him  in  a  different  way  from  theirs, 
or  that  while  they  knew  by  spiritual  revelation, 


1 64    OUR  L ORUS  KNO  WLED GE  UPON  EA R TH— 

He  knew  by  virtue  of  His  own  Divine  omni- 
science. If  there  was  such  a  difference,  Holy 
Scripture  does  not  make  it,  at  any  rate,  salient. 
We  come  upon  somewhat  different  ground 
when  we  turn  to  our  Lord's  knowledge  of  facts 
in  the  moral  order.  It  appears  to  be  one  thing 
to  have  a  supernatural  intimation  (for  instance) 
that  Lazarus  was  dead,  and  another  thing  to 
discern  the  depths  of  character.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  adduce  examples,  when  the  Gospels 
are  full  of  them,  of  our  Saviour's  perfect  insight 
into  the  moral  state  of  those  with  whom  He 
came  in  contact.  It  underlies  the  unwavering 
firmness  of  His  direction  of  souls.  "  One  thing 
thou  lackest :  go  and  sell  all  that  thou  hast,  and 
give  to  the  poor."^  Unbelievers  imagined  that 
they  had  convicted  Him  of  failure  in  this  respect ; 
and  by  so  doing,  gave  occasion  for  displaying 
His  insight  in  all  its  breadth  and  delicacy. 
"  If  this  man  were  a  prophet,"  they  say — for 
they  regarded  such  insight  as  part  of  the  en- 
dowment of  a  prophet — "  He  would  have  known 
what    manner   of  woman    this    is  that  toucheth 

*  St.  Mark  x.  21. 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 65 

Him  ; "  ^  and  then  follows  the  marvellous  vindi- 
cation of  His  discernment,  both  with  rei^ard  to 
the  woman  and  with  rcc^ard  to  Simon  the 
Pharisee  himself. 

And  such  discernment  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
is  not  the  result  of  long  personal  intercourse 
and  observation..  It  manifests  itself  at  first 
meetings.  It  requires  but  a  glance,  and  perhaps 
does  not  require  even  that.  "Jesus  looked 
upon  him,  and  said,  Thou  art  Simon  the  son 
of  John  ;  thou  shalt  be  called  Cephas,  which 
is  interpreted  Peter."  ^  "Jesus  saw  Nathanael 
coming  to  Him,  and  saith  concerning  him, 
Behold  indeed  an  Israelite,  in  whom  there  is  no 
guile."  ^  Well  might  a  man  reply  in  surprise, 
"  Whence  knowest  Thou  me  ? "  Everywhere 
there  is  the  same  unerring  perception  of  character 
and  of  moral  conditions.  "  I  know  you,"  *  Pie 
says  to  His  enemies — though  this  is  partly  the 
knowledge  of  experience.  "  I  know  My  sheep,"  '"' 
He  says  of  His  friends.  Quite  at  the  outset  of  His 
work,  St.  John  lays  it  down  as  a  generalisation, 

^   St.  Luke  vii.  39.  =  St.  John  i.  42.  ^  St.  John  i.  47. 

*  St.  John  V.  42  :  tyvuKa.         ^  St.  John  x.  14:   yivwauw. 


1 66     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

to  account  for  His  reserve  towards  persons 
who  gathered  promisingly  round  Him.  "Jesus 
did  not  entrust  Himself  to  them,  because  He, 
for  His  part,  knew  all  men,  and  inasmuch  as  He 
had  no  need  that  any  one  should  give  testimony 
concerning  the  man  (that  is,  any  given  man 
with  whom  He  was  dealing)*  for  He  Himself 
always  knew  what  was  in  the  man,"  or  possibly, 
"in  man."  ^  He  read  men's  thoughts,  moods, 
tendencies,  inward  conflicts,  before  they  were 
expressed,  before  the  men  themselves  were 
fully  conscious  of  them  ;  and  on  every  page  of 
the  Gospels,  His  questions  and  His  actions  laid 
bare  the  secret  things  of  other  men's  souls. 
It  was  not  strange  that  those  who  lived  con- 
secutively with  Him  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  He  knew,  not  only  all  men,  but  all-  things. 
"  Now  we  know  that  Thou  knowest  all  things, 
and  needest  not  that  any  should  question  Thee."^ 
"  Lord,  Thou  knowest  all  things ;  Thou  art 
aware  that   I  love  Thee."  ^     And,   at   any   rate, 

^  St.  John  ii.  24  foil.  :  Sjarb  ahrhv  yivcoaKeiu  irdvTas  .  .  .  avrus 
yap  ^yivuxTKev  ri  -^u  iv  ru  avOpwTrcf). 

^  St.  John  xvi.  30:   oWaij.cv  utl  olSas  irdvTa. 
^  St.  John  xxi.   17  :  iriuTa  <tv   olhas. 


ITS  TRANSCENDENCE.  1 67 


in    tlic   sense   in   which  they  meant  it,  the  Lord 
Jesus  did  not  disax-ow  the  ascription. 

In    this    knowledge   of    men    themselves,    as 
distinguished  from  the  knowledge  of  facts  about 
them,    our    Lord    is    plainly    without     a    rival. 
Discernment   of   character   is    a   gift    possessed 
by  all  men  to  some  degree  ;  by  many,  through 
the  power  of  the   Holy   Ghost,   in   a  high  and 
supernatural  degree  ;  but  no  other  has  had  the 
same  penetration  as  Christ  had.     All  others,  we 
may  well  suppose,  have  made  occasional  mistakes 
about  their  men,  but  our  Lord  never  did.     His 
choice  of  a  Judas  into  the  number  of  the  Twelve 
was  not  the  result  of  ignorance,  but  of  a   long 
night  of  prayer,  like  the  night  in  Gethsemane,^ 
and  a  prelude  to  it.     "  I  know  whom  I  chose."  '-^ 
As    He   was  unrivalled    in    His    penetration, 
so  our  Lord  was  unique  in  the  range  over  which 
those  powers  of  penetration  were  exercised.     By 
what  steps   His    knowledge   of   men    extended, 
from  the  hour  when   He  first  began  ris?c  cogno- 
scerc  Matrem,  and  knew  no  other  face  than  hers, 
to  the  end  of  all,  we  are  not  told.     But  there 

'  St.  Luke  vi.  12.  -  St.  John  xiii.  18. 


:6S     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 


seems  to  be  reason  to  believe  that  when  St. 
John  says,  "  He  knew  all  men,"  it  does  not 
mean  only  that  He  knew  them  when  He  met 
them.  "  Other  sheep  I  have,"  ^  He  says  ;  "  Every 
one  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth  My  voice,"  ^ 
as  if  He  were  conscious  of  spiritual  relations 
already  established  between  them  and  Him, 
although  the  time  for  mutual  recognition  and 
open  government  was  not  yet  come.  Saul  of 
Tarsus  and  the  Lord  Jesus  never  met  face  to 
face  during  the  Lord's  earthly  life ;  yet  St. 
Paul  says,  "He  loved  me,  and  gave  Himself 
for  me."^  It  would  seem  an  unwarranted  im- 
poverishment of  the  Apostle's  language  to 
explain  that  our  Lord  gave  Himself  for  all  men, 
and  therefore,  by  implication,  for  St.  Paul.  We 
seem  to  be  intended  to  gather  that,  at  the  close, 
at  any  rate,  our  Lord's  horizon  became  actually 
coextensive  with  all  whose  nature  was  summed 
up  in  Him  and  whose  sins  He  was  to  bear, 
and  that  each  individual  "brother"  of  His,  how- 
ever distant  in  time  and  clime,  not  only  has 
a  place  in  His  thought  and  affection  now,  but 
^  St.  John  X.  i6.  -  St.  John  xviii.  yj .         ^  Gal.  ii.  20. 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 69 


had  a  place  in  His  tliought  and  affection  then. 
That  from  the  Cross  He  actually  commanded 
the  whole  field  of  human  history,  and  came 
into  conscious  contact  with  every  one  of  us,  is 
a  belief  which  St,  Paul's  language  commends. 
Christ  is  in  His  human  nature  the  very  Head 
of  that  Body  of  which  we  are  all  members  ;  and 
as,  in  His  physical  frame.  He  "could  tell  all 
His  bones,"  each  contributing  its  separate 
quotum  to  that  sum  of  pain  which  He  felt,  so  it 
may  have  been  in  His  mystical  body  also,  and 
while  He  bore  "the  sin  of  the  world"  as  a  vast 
whole,  there  may  have  been  a  power  to  discrimi- 
nate the  items  also,  and  those  by  whose  fault 
He  came  to  bear  them. 

We  advance  now  from  the  moral  order  to  the 
Divine.      Here   we   are    on   the  surest  ground.'  '^ 
Our    Lord's    knowledge    in    Divine    things     is, 
absolute  and  exhaustive. 

It  is  so  with  regard  to  God  Himself.    No  shadow 
of    misgiving   passes    across    His    mind    as    He 
speaks  of  God.     The   holiest    and   wisest    men> 
have  always  felt  most  the  danger   of  speaking  i    -' 
of  the  Divine  nature,  knowing  it  to  be  infinitely 


170     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

above  and  beyond  them.  They  have  dreaded 
to  be  presumptuous  and  irreverent,  to  define 
rashly  in  a  sphere  of  which  they  possess  no 
positive  knowledge.  No  saint  who  ever  lived 
upon  earth  was  more  reverent  than  Christ.  His 
prayers,  we  are  told,  were  heard  "by  reason 
of  His  cautious  reverence,"  ^  and  it  is  said  of  Him, 
i  as  the  climax  of  the  Spirit's  gifts,  that  He  should 
■be  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  the  fear  of  the  Lord.^ 
His  language  about  God  and  to  God  is  that 
i  of  the  most  solemn  adoration.  Yet  He  speaks 
of  God  as  of  one  whom  He  knows  and  under- 
stands to  the  very  depth,  and  of  whom  He,  and 
He  alone,  is  qualified  to  speak.  "All  things 
were  delivered  to  Me  by  My  Father,  and  none 
knoweth  (eTrr/n'wa/cEt)  the  Son  but  the  Father, 
neither  doth  any  know  the  Father  but  the  Son, 
and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  is .  pleased  to 
reveal  Him."^  "Jesus  cried  in  the  temple, 
teaching  and  saying,  Ye  both  know  Me  (oVSart), 
and  ye  know  whence  I  am  ;  and  I  am  not  come 
of  Myself,  but   He  is  true  that  sent  Me,  whom 

^   Heb.  V.  7:  oTTt)  T7JS  euAajSetas.  -  Isa.  xi.  2,  3. 

2  St.  Matt.  xi.  27. 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  171 


ye  do  not  know.  I  know  Ilim  (o?oa),  because 
I  am  from  Him,  and  He  sent  Me  forth."  ^  "If 
I  gk:)rify  Myself,  My  glory  is  nothing  ;  there 
is  one  who  glorifieth  Me,  even  My  Father  ;  of 
whom  ye  say  that  He  is  your  God  ;  and  (all 
the  while)  ye  have  not  known  Him  (tyvwjcarf)  ; 
but  I  know  Him  (oT^a)  ;  and  if  I  say  that  I  do 
not  know  Him,  I  shall  be,  like  you,  a  liar;  but 
I  know  Him,  and  His  word  I  keep.""-^  "I  am 
the  Good  Shepherd,  and  know  My  sheep,  and 
am  known  of  Mine,  as  the  Father  knoweth  Me, 
and  I  know  {ytvLoaKw)  the  Father."^ 
(And  as  He  knows  the  eternal  Father,  so  also 
He  knows  the  Holy  Ghost.  With  entire  con- 
fidence He  opens  out  the  mystery  of  the  Holy 
Ghost's  existence,  and  personality,  and  function, 
and  connexion  with  the  Father  and  Himself, 
which  were  unknown  to  men  before.  "^  I  need  not 
quote  the  passages,  which  will  readily  come  to 
mind  ;  and  some  of  them  we  shall  need  to 
mention  by-and-by  for  another  purpose. 

The  same  intimate  knowledge  extends  to  all 
the  unseen  things,  w^hich  are   mysteries  hidden 

'  St.  John  vii.  28  foil.       -  St.  John  viii.  54.       '  St.  John  x.  14. 


172     OUR  L ORD'S  KNO  WLED GE  UPON  EA R TH — 


from  the  eyes  of  the  world.  Not  to  refer  to 
all  our  Saviour's  teaching  about  heaven  and 
hell,  and  the  powers  of  the  invisible  order,  it 
will  be  enough  to  refer  to  His  own  absolute 
claim  to  expound  heavenly  things, — although 
He  deigns  to  associate  others  with  Himself, 
as  having  experienced,  through  faith  in  Him, 
something  of  that  of  which  He  speaks.  "Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  you " — to  Nicodemus  and 
his  class — "  that  which  we  know  {oi^cijubv),  we 
speak,  and  that  which  we  have  seen,  we  testify, 
and  our  testimony  ye  receive  not.  If  I  told  you 
things  on  earth,  and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall 
ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  things  in  heaven  ?  "  ^ 

But  it  is  with  regard  to  His  own  person  and 
significance  to  the  world  that  our  Lord's 
witness  is,  for  our  present  purpose,  the  most 
noteworthy.  Some  modern  writers  upon  New 
Testament  theology,  such  as  Beyschlag,  venture 
to  speak  of  our  Lord  as  manifesting  "  a  purely 
human  consciousness  of  Himself"^  Such  a 
theory,   of   course,  presupposes  the  rejection  of 

'  St.  John  iii.  1 1  foil. 

-  Beyschlag's  A^e^o  Test.  Theology  (Eng.  transl.)  i.  73. 


ITS  TRANSCENDENCE.  1 73 


St.  John's  Gospel  as  a  historical  account  of 
our  Lord's  teaching  ;  but  there  arc  utterances 
enough  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  also  to  make 
the  theory  untenable. 

Jesus  had  from  early  years  known  and  laid 
to  heart,  in  a  way  suitable  to  His  tender  age, 
His  relationship  to  God.  "Wist  ye  not,"  He 
says,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  "  that  I  must  be  in 
]\Iy  Father's  house  .''  "  ^  We  are  not  compelled 
to  suppose  that  those  gracious  lips  were  pre- 
pared then  and  there  to  unfold,  in  the  language 
of  a  later  time,  the  whole  mystery  of  His 
Person  ;  but  when  He  says,  "  My  Father's," 
and  not  "  God's,"  nor  yet  "  Our  Father's," 
we  cannot  but  believe  that  in  all  grave  sim- 
pHcity  He  had  felt  within  Himself  a  peculiar 
bond  of  kinship  with  Him  whose  the  temple 
was.  When  once  His  ministry  was  begun, 
although  He  would  not  put  the  sublime  con- 
clusion ready-made  in  the  mouths  of  men.  He 
was  perpetually  engaged  in  teaching  them  the 
premisses  that  should  lead  to  the  conclusion 
that  He  was  God, — though  not  for  His  own 
*  St.  Luke  ii.  49. 


1/4     OUR  L ORD'S  KNO  WLED GE  UPON  EARTH— 

glorification,  but  that,  believing  Him  to  be  what 
He  was,  they  might  recognise  the  character 
and  purposes  of  the  Father  from  whom  He 
came.  Such  deep  wells  of  self-revelation  lie 
everywhere  in  St.  John's  Gospel;  but  they  lie  to 
a  less  extent  in  the  others  also. 

Is  it  a  purely  human  consciousness  that  is 
manifested,  I  will  not  say  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  when  Christ  contrasts  His  new  law, 
promulgated  upon  His  own  authority — "I  say 
unto  you,"— with  all  that  had  gone  before ;  but 
in  that  threefold  comparison  contained  in  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew  :  "  I  say  unto  you 
that  something  greater  than  the  temple  is 
here  {rov  kpov  f^id^ov)  ; "  ^  "  and  lo,  something 
more  than  Jonas  is  here  (-\uov  'Iwya);"^ 
"something  more  than  Solomon  is  here  (ttXhov 
SoXo/wwvoc)  ?"^  He  does  not  compare  Himself 
with  Solomon  or  Jonas  as  a  greater  man  than 
they  were  ;  that  would  have  been  ttXeUov  or 
fiEi^ii)v  '^oXofxGjvog,  7r\uii)v  'Itjva.  His  greatness 
is  not  in  the  same  order  as  theirs.  There  is  a 
difference  in  their  very  essence. 
*  St.  Matt.  xii.  6.       2  gt_  Mj^tj_  ^-  ^j_       3  st^  ^.l^^^^  ^ii  ^2. 


ITS  TRANSCENDENCE.  175 

The    Jews    at    Jerusalem    early   cau^^^ht    and 
correctly  interpreted   His  meaning,  when,  upon 
His  saying,  "My  Father  worketh   hitherto,  and 
I  work,"  they  inferred    that    He  "claimed  God     y^ 
in  a   special   sense   as  His  own  Father  {iruT-cpa 
t'gioy  iXtyi   Tov    e^oiO,   making     Himself    equal 
to  God."  '     So  He  did  indeed.     When  at  a  later 
period   they   again    accused    Him    of   "making 
Himself   a    God,"-    instead   of   repudiating  the 
alleged  blasphemy,   He  showed  them  from  the 
Scriptures  that   if  a  mere   reception  of  Divine 
revelation  gave  to  the  recipients  a  right  to  the 
title  of  gods,  His  own  unique  office  as  the  agent 
of   revelation  fully  justified  the  claims  which  He 
had  actually  made.     And  those  claims  involved 
a  co-equal  Godhead  with  the    Father.     "  I  and 
the  Father   are  one."  ^     "Have  I  been  so  long 
time  with  you,  and  yet    hast   thou  not   known    ., 
Me,  Philip  ?     He  that  hath  seen  Me,  hath  seen 
the    Father.     How    sayest    thou,    Show   us   the 
Father  ?  "  '     "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  The 
Son  cannot  do  anything  of  Himself,  except  He 

»  St.  John  V.  i8.  *  St.  Johnx.  33. 

3  St.  John  X.  30.  *  St.  John  xiv.  9- 


Ij6    OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

behold  the  Father  doing  aught ;  for  whatsoever 
He  doeth,  these  things  doeth  the  Son  in  like 
manner.  For  the  Father  loveth  the  Son,  and 
showeth  to  Him  all  things  that  Himself  doeth."  ^ 
"  The  Father  hath  committed  the  whole  judgment 
unto  the  Son,  that  all  may  honour  the  Son  even 
as  they  honour  the  Father."  ^  "  The  Spirit  of  truth 
shall  guide  you  into  all  the  truth  ;  for  He  shall 
not  speak  from  Himself,  but  as  many  things  as 
He  heareth.  He  shall  speak  ...  He  shall  glorify 
Me  ;  because  He  shall  take  out  of  that  which 
is  Mine,  and  declare  it  unto  you.  All  things 
whatsoever  the  Father  hath  are  Mine  ;  for  this 
cause  I  said  that  He  taketh  out  of  that  which 
is  Mine,  and  shall  declare  it  unto  you."^ 

No  words  could  more  fully  describe  the  God- 
head of  the  Son  according  to  its  contents — if 
I  may  use  the  expression — than  such  texts  as 
these.  There  can  be  no  question  but  that  Christ 
upon  earth  was  fully  conscious  of  His  Divine 
essence  ;  and  when  at  last  a  great  disciple  sprang 
at  a   bound   out   of  the    depth   of  hopelessness 

^  St.  John  V.  19.  -  St.  John  v.  22. 

^  St.  John  xvi.  13  foil. 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 7/ 

to  the  glorious  confession,  never  made  before, 
that  Christ  was  his  God,  Jesus  calmly  ac- 
cepted the  adoration.  While  Peter,  in  the 
Acts,  says  with  blunt  simplicity  to  the  prostrate 
Cornelius,  "  Stand  up ;  I  myself  also  am  a 
man  ;"  while  twice  over  in  the  Apocalypse  the 
interpreting  angel,  at  whose  feet  the  seer  had 
fallen,  cries  in  horror,  "  See  thou  do  it  not ; 
I  am  thy  fellow-servant ; "  while  Jesus  Him- 
self abruptly  rejects  earthly  honours  that  were 
not  His:  "Man,  who  made  Me  a  judge  or  a 
divider  over  you  ? "  ^  Jesus  has  no  rebuke 
for  St.  Thomas's  gesture  and  word  of  worship, 
save  a  gentle  rebuke  that  it  had  not  come 
sooner.-- 

Our  Lord  was  not  only  fully  conscious  of  His 
personal  Godhead  and  oneness  of  essence  with  / 
the  Father.  He  was  conscious  of  His  former 
mode  of  existence,  of  His  mission  to  the  world, 
and  of  His  uninterrupted  connexion  with  God. 
The  passages  which  bring  these  points  before 
us  sometimes  bring  more  than  one  of  them  at 
a  time,  so  that  we  may  take  them  all  together. 

'  St.  Luke  xii.  14.  '  St.  John  xx.  28. 

N 


178     OUR  L ORD'S  KNO  WLED GE  UPON  EAR TH— 


That  His  former  mode  of  existence  was  present 
to  the  mind  of  Jesus  is  shown,  above  all,  in  His 
last  great  prayer.  "And  now,  O  Father,  glorify 
Thou  Me  beside  Thyself,  with  the  glory  which 
I  had,  before  the  world  was,  beside  Thee."  ^ 
That  glory  is  to  Him  a  thing  of  the  past  and 
of  the  future,  not  of  present  enjoyment ;  but 
no  oblivion  puts  it  out  of  His  remembrance. 
He  speaks  of  those  experiences  of  His  life 
before  the  Incarnation  in  other  passages  where 
He  is  enforcing  the  authority  of  His  mission. 
He  desires,  for  instance,  to  tell  Nicodemus  of 
heavenly  things,  "  And  no  one,"  He  adds, 
"hath  ascended  into  heaven,  save  He  that  came 
down  out  of  heaven,  even  the  Son  of  man."^ 
Again  He  says,  "  Every  one  who  hath  heard 
from  the  Father,  and  learned,  cometh  to  Me  ; — 
not  that  any  hath  seen  the  Father,  except  He 
who  is  from  the  side  of  God  (6  wy  itapu  tov 
Qtov)  ;  He  hath  seen  the  Father."  ^  The  contrast 

^  St.  John  xvii.  5. 

2  St.  John  iii.  13.  The  words  which  follow  in  the  Received 
Text,  "which  is  in  heaven,"  are  no  part  of  the  original,  and 
suggest  a  conception  of  Christ's  life  on  earth  which  has  no 
support  in  any  other  part  of  the  Gospels. 

^  St.  John  V.  45  foil. 


JTS   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 79 

is  again  drawn  :  "  Ye  have  never  yet  heard  voice 
nor  seen  shape  of  Him,  and  His  word  ye  have 
not  abiding  in  you  ;  because  whom  He  sent, 
Him  ye  believe  not."  ^  Once  more:  "If  I  bear 
witness  concerning  Myself,  My  witness  is  true, 
because  I  know  whence  I  came,  and  whither 
I  go."^ 

But  the  connexion  with  the  Father  is  no  mere 
reminiscence  of  a  great  past.  Again  and  again 
our  Lord  asseverates  that  the  Father  is  and/ 
dwells  "in"  Him,  and  He  "in"  the  Father.\ 
Although  the  Father  has  sent  Him  forth  into 
the  world,  He  has  not  broken  off  an  active 
correspondence  with  Him,  though  it  is  main- 
tained under  a  new  form.  "  He  that  sent  was 
still  with  Him  that  was  sent."  "He  that  sent 
Me  is  with  Me.  He  did  not  leave  Me  alone, 
because  I  do  always  the  things  which  please 
Him."  ^  "  If  I  judge,  My  judgment  is  true, 
because  I  am  not  alone  ;  but  I  and  the  Father 
who  sent  Me."^ 

Sometimes,  however,  the  mighty  recollection    I 

>  St.  John  V.  37.  ^  St.  John  viii.  14. 

»  St.  John  viii.  29.  •*  St.  John  viii.  16. 


u 


1 80    OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

of  that  "  sanctification "  and  "  sealing "  which 
preceded  His  being  "sent  into  the  world"  so 
dominates  the  mind  of  the  Incarnate  Lord, 
that  He  speaks  as  if  all  His  teaching  were 
based  upon  it,  and  as  if  a  body  of  sacred  truth 
had  been  once  for  all  entrusted  to  Him,  to  be 
dehvered  in  detail  to  men.  "  My  doctrine  is 
not  Mine,  but  His  that  sent  Me."  ^  "He  that 
sent  Me  is  true  ;  and  /  speak  into  the  world 
what  I  heard  from  Him."^  "The  things  which 
I  have  seen  with  the  Father,  I  speak."  ^  "  Of 
Myself  I  do  nothing,  but  according  as  the 
Father  taught  Me,  I  speak  these  things."* 
The  heavenly  instruction  descends  even  to  the 
successive  details  of  the  teaching.  "  I  did  not 
speak  out  of  Myself" — so  our  Saviour  finally 
looks  back  upon  His  concluded  ministry  of 
teaching — "but  the  Father  who  sent  Me,  Him- 
self hath  given  Me  a  commandment,  what  I 
should  say  (in  general),  and  what  I  should 
speak  (in  the  particular  form  of  the  moment). 
.    .    .    The    things    therefore    which    I    speak, 

^  St.  John  vii.  16.  ^  St.  John  viii.  26. 

»  St.  John  viii.  38  *  St.  John  viii.  28. 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  iSl 


according  as  the  Father  hath  said  to  IMc,  I  so 
speak."  1 

And  as  it  is  with  our  Lord's  teaching,  so  it 
is  also  with  His  action.  He  speaks  of  it  some- 
times as  if  imposed  upon  Him  once  for  all  in 
His  original  mission.  This  seems  to  be  the 
purpose  of  all  those  sayings  where  He  speaks 
of  doing  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Him,  or 
working  the  w^orks  of  Him  that  sent  Him. 
"According  as  the  Father  gave  Me  command- 
ment, so  I  do."  ^  "I  glorified  Thee  upon  the 
earth,  by  accomplishing  the  work  which  Thou 
hast  given  Me  that  I  should  do  it."^  St. 
John  has  been  accused  of  making  our  Lord 
speak  as  if  His  life  were  the  execution  of 
a  program  ;  but  the  fact  is  so.  He  came,  in- 
deed, into  the  world  with  a  program, — "  In  the 
volume  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  Me," — and 
He  consciously  and  conscientiously  fulfilled 
it.  There  were  no  moments  of  vacillation  in  His 
life.  Our  Lord  always  moves  straight  towards 
His  mark. 

'"  St.  John  xii.  49  foil.  -  St.  John  xiv.  31. 

^  St.  John  xvii.  4. 


152     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

It  has  often  been  observed  how  the  sufferings 
of  the  Redeemer  were  enhanced  by  having  been 
long  foreknown  to  Him,  even  in  minute  parti- 
culars. The  contemplation  of  them  beforehand 
woke  in  Him  a  holy  impatience  to  be  in  the 
midst  of  them.  "  I  have  a  baptism  to  be  bap- 
tized withal,  and  how  am  I  straitened  till  it  be 
accomplished  !  "  ^  Doubtless,  like  other  know- 
ledge which  He  possessed,  the  knowledge  of 
His  appointed  program  of  actions  and  of  suffer- 
ings became  ampler  and  more  particular  as 
time  went  on  ;  but  we  can  mention  no  date  at 
which  were  first  shown  to  Him  the  main  out- 
lines of  what  was  in  store  for  the  Lamb  of 
God.  As  far  back  as  we  can  trace  His  thoughts 
— that  is,  from  the  Jordan  and  the  Temptation 
onwards — He  advances  steadily  in  the  direction 
of  the  Cross.  At  the  first  Passover  after  His 
ministry  began,  He  already  announces  in  a 
riddle  His  murder  and  His  resurrection  on  the 
third  day.^  In  His  conversation  of  the  same 
date  with  Nicodemus,  He  declares  that  He  is 
to  be  lifted   up   like  the  Brazen  Serpent  in  the 

*  St.  Luke  xii.  50.  ^  St.  John  ii.  19. 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 83 

wilderness.^  As  time  c^oes  on,  lie  tells  I  lis 
disciples  beforehand  every  hideous  and  revoltinc; 
detail  of  the  Trial  and  the  Crucifixion.  When 
it  draws  quite  close,  He  calmly  says,  "Ye  know 
that  after  two  days  is  the  Passover,  and  the 
Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  to  be  crucified.'"-^ 
Nothing  in  that  last  dreadful  chapter  of  His 
earthly  history  finds  Him  unprepared.  At  no 
period  of  His  recorded  life  is  there  visible  so 
tranquil  and  majestic  a  sense  of  being  ready 
for  all,  and  doing  what  had  long  been  familiar- 
ised by  mental  rehearsal.  **  Before  the  feast  of 
the  Passover,  Jesus  knowing  that  His  hour  was 
come  that  He  should  depart  out  of  this  world 
unto  the  Father."^  "Jesus,  knowing  all  things 
that  were  coming  upon  Him,  went  forth.'"' 
"After  this,  Jesus  knowing  that  all  things  were 
now  finished,  that  the  Scripture  might  be  ful- 
filled, saith,  I  thirst."  ^  Nor  did  Christ's  acquaint- 
ance with  His  own  program  end  here.  He 
knew  well  beforehand,  and  had  predicted.  His 
resurrection     and     ascension,    and    in    glorious 

'  St.  John  iii.  14.        -  St.  Matt.  xxvi.  2.       ^  St.  John  xiii.  i. 
*  St.  John  xviii.  4.  '•'  St.  John  xix.  28. 


84    OUR  LORD'S  KNO  WLEDGE  UPON  EAR TH- 


fulness    He    predicted    His    return     again     to 
judge. 
/  Our    Lord    had    not    only   a    complete    and 

'-'^  perfect  knowledge  of  Himself  and  of  His  task  ; 
He  knew  also  the  preparation  which  the  Divine 
Providence  had  made  for  His  coming.  The 
history  set  forth  in  the  Bible  was  familiar  to 
Him ;  and  the  teaching  of  lawgivers  and 
prophets  and  wise  men  lay  open  to  His  mind. 
Our  Saviour  knew  the  Bible,  though  we  are  not 
told  of  His  reading  it,  except  in  public.  "  How 
knoweth  this  Man  letters  {i.e.  literary  ways), 
having  never  learned  {i.e.  in  the  recognised 
schools  of  the  teachers) }  "  ^  So  men  asked 
when  they  saw  how  much  He  knew.  He  found 
support  for  Himself  in  the  Scriptures,  in  the 
wilderness  of  Temptation  and  on  the  Cross,  and 
doubtless  at  other  times.  He  affirmed  without 
hesitation  that  He  was  Himself  the  chief  theme 
of  them.  "Ye  search  the  Scriptures,  for  in 
them  ye  think  to  have   eternal   life  ;   and   it   is 

\j    they  that  testify  of   Me  ;   and  yet  ye  will  not 
come  to  Me  that  ye  may  have  life."  ^     "  Think 

^  St.  John  vii.  i6.  -  St.  John  v.  39. 


ITS    TRANSCENDENCE,  I^^S 

not  that  I  will  accuse  you  to  the  Father.     There 
is  one  that  accuseth  you,  even  Moses,  in  whom 
ye  have  hoped.     For  if  ye  believed   Moses,  ye 
would  have  believed  Me,  for  he  wrote  of  Me." ' 
"This  that  is  written  must  yet  be  accomplished 
in  Me."-^     MIow  then  shall  the  Scriptures  be 
fulfilled,  that   thus   it   must  be.?"^      "Ye  fools, 
and  slow  of  heart  to  believe  upon  all  that  the 
prophets    spake!       Ought    not    the    Christ    to 
have  suffered  these  things,  and  so  to  enter  into 
His  glory.?      And  beginning  at  Moses   and   all 
the  prophets.   He  expounded   unto  them   in   all 
the  Scriptures  the  things  concerning  Himself."* 
**  These   are    the  words  which   I   spake  to  you 
while  I  was  yet  with  you,  that  all  things  written 
in  the  law  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets  and  the 
Psalms  concerning  Me  must  be  fulfilled.     Then 
opened  He  their  understanding  that  they  might 
understand  the  Scriptures."  ^     In  every  question 
respecting  the  interpretation   of  the   Scriptures, 
our    Lord    moves    with    perfect    freedom    and 


1  St.  Jolin  V.  45  foil.  -  St.  Luke  xxii.  37- 

'  St.  Matt.  xxvi.  54.  *  St.  Luke  xxiv.  25. 

'"  St.  Luke  xxiv.  44  foil. 


1 86     OUR  LORD'S  KNO IVLEDGE  UPON  EARTII- 


confidence,    unhesitatingly.      He    knows    their 
meaning  and  their  value. 

There  is  one  very  remarkable  passage  in  St. 
John   which   seems  to  indicate  that   our  Lord's 
knowledge  of  the  Bible  history  was  not  all,  at 
any  rate,  derived  from  the  study  of  the    Bible 
itself,  or  from  any  current  interpretations  of  it. 
It   is  in   the  latter  part  of  the   eighth  chapter, 
where  the  Jews  accuse  Jesus  of  making  Himself 
greater  than   Abraham   and   the  prophets,   who 
were   dead,    while    He   professed  to  be  able  to 
%iN^  a  deathless  life.     Jesus  replied  to  the  main 
charge,  and  then,  to  teach  them  the  true  relation 
between    Abraham    and    Himself,    He    added, 
"  Your  father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  My  day  ; 
and  He  saw  it,  and  was   glad."^     No  incident 
is  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  which  directly 
affirms   what    our    Lord    affirmed,  though  there 
are  recorded  occasions  to  which  such  a  blessed 
prevision    of    Christ's    day    may    naturally    be 
referred.      The   Jews,    however,    did    not    assail 
our   Lord   on    the  score   of   an    interpretation ; 
they  assailed  Him  because   His   words  seemed 

^  St,  John  viii.  56. 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 87 

to  imply  some  previous  intercourse  between 
Himself  and  the  patriarch.  The>'  looked  at  the 
face  and  figure  of  the  Man  of  thirty-three, 
worn  and  prematurely  aged,  as  it  appears,  and 
said,  "  Thou  are  not  yet  fifty  years  old,  and  hast 
Thou  seen  Abraham  ?  Jesus  said  unto  them, 
Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Before  Abraham 
was,  I  am."  Why  did  our  Lord  give  this  answer  } 
Might  He  not  have  replied  that  He  never 
said  that  He  had  seen  Abraham,  but  that 
Abraham,  in  a  sense,  had  seen  Him  ?  Might 
He  not  have  said  that  His  statement  about 
Abraham  was  but  a  natural  deduction  from 
all  that  is  told  us  in  the  Scriptures  about  the 
character  of  that  holy  man,  and  about  the 
promises  made  to  Him  ?  But  no  ;  Jesus  claimed, 
not  indeed  to  have  been  alive  on  earth  with 
Abraham,  but  to  be  above  time  altogether  in 
His  essential  existence,  and  therefore  to  include 
the  life  of  Abraham,  and  all  history,  within  His 
experience  and  personal  observation.  He  had 
indeed  seen  Abraham.  He  had  witnessed  the 
exultation  with  which  Abraham  caught  sight, 
in    the    Spirit,    of  those  far-ofT  years  when  the 


1 88     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH— 

promised  Seed  should  come.  He  had  witnessed 
it ;  and  now,  though  incarnate,  and  Himself 
made  subject  to  the  laws  of  temporal  existence, 
He  had  not  forgotten  the  event.  As,  from  His 
place  on  earth.  He  could  look  back  and  remem- 
ber the  glory  which  He  had  with  the  Father 
before  His  Incarnation,  so,  it  seems.  He  could 
look  back  aud  remember  how  He  had  dealt 
with  the  heroes  of  the  Old  Testament  hope,  and 
had  watched  their  spiritual  progress. 

A  saying  like  this  must  make  us  careful  of 
our  words  when  we  speak  of  our  Saviour's 
human  knowledge  in  relation  to  questions  of 
Old  Testament  authorship  and  the  like.  He 
may  well  sometimes  have  used  names  like 
Moses  and  David  in  conventional  senses  ;  but 
Moses  and  David  were  real  persons  to  Him, 
whom  He  had  known,  and  had  not  forgotten. 
It  is  of  interest  to  note  how  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  speak  of  a  special  connexion 
between  the  person  of  the  Blessed  Lord  and 
the  development  of  the  Old  Testament  history. 
When  the  Israelites  ate  and  drank  manna  and 
miraculously  given  water  in   the  wilderness,  the 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 89 

food  was  "spiritual  food,"  and  "the  rock  was 
the  Christ."^  Moses  himself  "esteemed  the 
reproach  of  the  Christ  greater  riches  than  the 
treasures  of  Egypt."  ^  The  Spirit  which  inspired 
the  prophets  was  "the  Spirit  of  Christ  in 
them."^  All  that  pertained  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures  belonged  to  the  personal  history  of 
the  Divine  Son,  and  seems  to  have  come  back 
to  Him  as  such. 

I  have  touched,  though  not  with  such  com- 
pleteness as  I  could  wish,  upon  some  of  those 
departments  in  which  our  adorable  Saviour's 
human  knowledge  transcended,  to  say  the  least 
of  it,  that  of  other  men.  There  were,  as  we  saw 
in  my  last  lecture,  points  in  which,  though  He 
made  no  mistake,  He  was  contented  not  to 
know.  But  compare  the  kind  of  matters  in 
which  He  seems  to  have  not  known,  with  those 
in  which  He  knew!  In  infancy,  doubtless,  He 
knew  but  as  an  infant.  In  sleep,  His  knowledge 
of  all  that  He  knew  was,  like  ours,  in  abeyance. 
In  crises  like  the  Agony,  His  hold  upon  what 
He    knew — all  but   the  one   thing  that  was   of 

'   J  Cor,  X.  4.  -  Ileb.  xi,  26.         ^  i  Peter  i,  li, 


1 90     OUR  L ORD'S  KNO IVLED GE  UPON  EA R TH^ 


immediate  importance — seemed  to  be  paralysed. 
But  taking  the  normal  waking  hours  of  His  last 
three  years  upon  earth,  the  things  which,  according 
to  the  records.  He  appears  to  have  not  known 
are  trivial  facts,  easily  to  be  ascertained  by  an 
ordinary  question,  or  by  walking  a  few  steps. 
The  things  which  He  knew  were  God  and  man, 
Himself  and  His  saving  work,  the  Bible  and 
the  Divine  dispensations.  Truly  it  concerns  us 
little,  as  Christ  never  set  Himself  to  speak  on 
such  topics,  whether  He  ever  turned  His  human 
attention  upon  facts  of  natural  science  or  of 
secular  history.  All  that  it  was  profitable  to 
know  for  His  perfection  and  for  our  salvation, 
that  we  are  assured  that  He  knew  with  an 
accuracy  and  completeness  in  which  there  was 
no  room  for  improvement. 

This  immeasurable  wealth  of  human  know- 
ledge was  derived,  as  we  have  seen,  from  various 
sources.  First,  there  was  His  own  observation 
— and  His  natural  faculties  were  the  most  perfect 
that  were  ever  created,  and  they  had  not  been 
dulled  by  sin.  Then  for  Him,  as  for  us,  there 
was    the    knowledge    acquired    by    information 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  191 


from  others.  None  can  now  tell  how  nnuch 
was  owini^,  under  the  Divine  guidance,  to  the 
early  instructions  imparted  by  Mary,  and  by 
the  good  foster-father  who  taught  Him  a  trade, 
and  by  doctors  like  those  who  clustered  round 
Him  in  the  Temple;  only  we  may  be  sure 
that,  when  least  intending  it,  His  luminous 
and  spiritual  intelligence  gave  back  a  thousand 
times  more  (if  only  the}*  had  power  to  appre- 
hend it)  than  what  He  gained  from  them. 
And  then  there  was  the  enlightening  grace 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  by  whose  operation  He 
first  became  flesh,  and  who  found  in  the 
sacred  youth  of  Jesus  a  perfect  vessel  for  His 
use ;  and  who,  when  the  moment  was  come, 
descended  upon  Him,  without  measure,  in  all 
His  entirety,  opening  all  heaven  to  His  sight, 
and  keeping  it  ever  open. 

To  that  Holy  Spirit's  influence  we  may  pro- 
bably ascribe  those  kinds  of  special  knowledge 
which  (in  a  sense)  were  common  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
and  to  the  prophets.^    To  His  influence  upon  our 

'   "[The  Scriptures]  teach  us  that  all  Ilis  superhuman  know- 
ledge was  supplied   by  the   Father.  .  .  .  All    things   that  the 


192     OUR  L ORD'S  KNO IFLED GE  UPON  EA R TH— 


Lord's  unique  humanity  we  may  perhaps  ascribe 
our  Lord's  penetration  into  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  men.  To  Him,  the  inspirer  of  the  men  of  old, 
may  perhaps  be  traced  our  Lord's  perfect  under- 
standing of  the  Scriptures.  It  was  by  Him  that, 
even  after  the  Resurrection,  Christ  continued 
to  give  commandment  to  His  disciples.^  ^  We 
saw,  in  the  first  lecture,  that  it  was  by  Him 
that  our  Lord's  miracles  were  wrought.  Whether 
we  are  to  go  further  still  in  the  same  direction 
is  not  made  clear.  It  is  possible  that  we  are 
to  believe  that  it  was  to  the  witness  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  that  our  Saviour  upon  earth  owed  His 
knowledge  even  of  Himself,  and  of  God,  and 
of  His  connexion  with  God,  and  of  His  Sonship  ; 
that  it  was  the  Holy  Ghost  who  brought  to  His 
inward  as  well  as  His  outward  ears  the  assurance, 
"Thou  art  My   beloved   Son,    in    whom    I    am 

Omniscient  Father  knows, — that  is,  all  things, — doubtless,  were 
known  to  the  Son,  when  He  was  'in  the  form  of  God.'  But 
it  appears  when  He  became  Man,  and  dwelt  among  us,  of  this 
infinite  knowledge  He  only  possessed  as  much  as  was  imparted 
to  Him.  And  this  being  the  case,  we  must  see  that,  if  anything 
which  could  not  be  known  naturally  was  not  made  known  to 
Him  by  the  Father,  it  would  not  be  known  by  Him  "  (Bishop 
O'Brien's  Cha7-ge  p.  no). 
'  Acts  i.  2, 


ITS   TRANSCENDENCE.  1 93 


well  pleased  ? "  Thus,  at  last,  even  the  know- 
ledge of  those  things  which  our  Blessed  Saviour 
knew  by  virtue  of  His  own  unchanged  personality 
— His  wondrous  remembrances  brought  with 
Him  from  afar — may  have  been  due  to  the 
action  of  Him  who  brings  all  necessary  things 
to  the  remembrance  of  the  Christian,  and  whose 
great  office  in  the  eternal  Godhead  is  to  search 
the  depths  of  the  Divine  self-consciousness,  and 
to  unite  the  Father  with  the  Son. 

It  is  possible  that  in  the  course  of  a  difficult 
investigation  I  may  sometimes  have  spoken 
in  a  way  that  has  caused  pain  or  perplexity 
to  some  of  my  hearers.  If  it  be  so,  I  would 
heartily  ask  their  forbearance  and  forgiveness. 
I  earnestly  hope  that  I  have  not  spoken  without 
due  reverence  towards  the  Eternal  Son  of  God, 
who  is  the  subject  of  our  thought ;  and  I  will 
beg  all  who  have  heard  me  to  search  the 
Scriptures  candidly,  like  the  noble  Jews  of  Beroea, 
to  see  whether  these  things  are  so.  Nothing 
is  more  to  be  desired  than  that  we  should  go 
simply  to  our  Bibles,  and  work  at  them  afresh. 
These   lectures    will  have  a  profitable  result,  if 

O 


94     OUR  LORD'S  KNOWLEDGE  UPON  EARTH, 


they  set  the  students  of  this  Seminary  to  read 
the  Gospels  with  renewed  interest,  whether 
that  study  should  issue  in  the  establishing  of 
the  main  suggestions  which  I  have  offered  or 
in  their  refutation. 


THE  END. 


PRINTED    BY    WILLIAM    CLOWES    AND    SONS,    LIMITED, 
LONDON    AND    BECCLES. 


^%      BS2421  .N|39  lord's  life  on 

■       The  conditions  o^  ^  ^,n,rv-Speer  Library 


77oi2  00056  6630 


